


A SHORT HISTORY 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 



SHORT HISTORY 



OF 



Napoleon the First. 



BY 



JOHN ROBERT SEELEY, 

Regius Professor of Modern History in the University op 
Cambridge, and Author of " Ecce Homo," etc. 



mitl) a Portrait. 






V 



BOSTON: 

ROBERTS BROTHERS. 

1886. 



^A 



BEmiitrBitD ^^ressB: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambkidgb. 



'9 ^ 



PREFACE. 



To write a life of Napoleon which shall be posi- 
tively short is uot possible. When I undertook to 
write one in twelve pages of the ' Encyclopsedia 
Britannica,' I thought I was attempting what was 
difficult ; but I was mistaken ; I was attempting 
what was impossible. I take this opportunity of 
acknowledging the liberality of the Messrs. Black, 
who, in compliance with my wishes, and, I believe, 
at considerable inconvenience to the arrangements 
of the Encyclopsedia, actually allowed me thirty- 
six pages, or not less than three times the space 
which had been originally allotted for the article. 
The same publishers now place me under another 
obligation in consenting to smooth ray way to the 
present ' Short History,' in which the substance of 
that article is incorporated. 

The Life of Napoleon now given to the public 
is, if not absolutely short, yet, measured by the 
space allotted in it to each incident, almost as 
short as the obituary notice of a newspaper. It 
dismisses more than one great campaign with a 



iv Preface. 

sentence, more than one famous battle with a line. 
In the Encyclo^^sedia this was unavoidable, but the 
reader may ask whether there can be any justifi- 
cation for issuing as a book a summary which must 
needs, he may think, be as jejune as a table of 
contents. 

I admit at once that for some purposes this 
Short History of Napoleon must be AvhoUy useless, 
but I flatter myself that for certain other purposes 
it may be all the more satisfactory for being so 
exceedingly brief. A bewilderment caused by the 
multitude of facts and details is the danger which 
chiefly besets the reader of history ; and where, as 
in Napoleon's career, facts are unusually crowded 
together, the danger is greatest, the bewilderment 
most overwhelming. I have held it possible to 
meet this difficulty by almost suppressing details, 
and thus diminishing to the utmost the demand 
made upon the attention and memory, but at the 
same time to atone for what is lost in coloring and 
light and shadow by clearness of outline. 

Nothing certainly could be more lifeless than a 
mere chronological catalogue of Napoleon's achieve- 
ments ; but I thought that a narrative almost as 
brief as a catalogue would not be uninteresting, 
and still less useless, if it successfully brought to- 
gether cause and efiect, traced development clearly, 
and showed convincingly the influence of the age 
upon the man, and of the man upon his age. 



Preface. v 

I have, therefore, subordinated everything to 
clearness and unity, and there are some aspects of 
the life which, to gain room, I have consciously 
omitted altogether. For instance, no attempt is 
made here either to describe or to estimate Napo- 
leon as a military commander. I do not write a 
soldier's history of him, and accordingly, though I 
endeavor to give the strategical outline of each 
campaign correctly, the battles will be found to be 
not only not described, but not even narrated ; 
they are merely registered. Again, I refrain al- 
most entirely from drawing upon the fund of pri- 
vate, personal, or domestic detail and anecdote, 
though it is upon matter of this kind that a biog- 
raphy commonly depends for its vividness. The 
Duchess of Abrantes, Bourrienne, Mme. de Eemu- 
sat, and many similar writers less well known, 
stood ready tfe supply such matter in no small 
quantity ; but I wished my narrative to be clear 
and short, and comparatively I cared little that it 
should be vivid, 

I thought such a plan feasible, but I did not 
flatter myself that it would be easy. It is partic- 
ularly difficult to gain a comprehensive view of 
those historical persons who have an international 
position. Napoleon is a leading figure in the do- 
mestic history of every great continental state, and 
the greatest foreign enemy in the history of England, 
yet most of his historians have regarded him almost 



vi Preface. 

exclusively from tbe point of view of a single state. 
They have written as Frenchmen or as English- 
men, not only with limited sympathies, but actually 
for the most part with most imperfect knowledge. 

Such an outline as I meditated, at once short 
and trustworthy, could not be produced by mere 
compilation from ordinary authors, or by hasty in- 
vestigations. I must ask the reader to believe 
that I have not studied Napoleon's life in order to 
write this little book, but that I write the book 
because I have for years studied the Napoleonic 
age from many points of view, and in many coun- 
tries. I need not ask him to take this entirely 
on credit. I have shown in my ' Life and Times of 
Stein ' (1879) that I have investigated thoroughly 
the revolutions produced by the Napoleonic wars 
in Germany. From my 'Expansion of England' 
(1883) he may satisfy himself that I have reflected 
on the relations of France and England in the 
Napoleonic age, and on the gradual growth through- 
out the eighteenth century of that quarrel between 
the two nations which reached such a height under 
Napoleon. But since the publication of that book 
and during the composition of this, I have pur- 
sued those inquiries further, being engaged upon 
a 'History of English Foreign Policy during the 
Eighteenth Century.' And I draw my information 
at first hand from the manuscript despatches pre- 
served at the Record Office. 



Preface. vii 

As to the French aspect of the subject, I have en- 
deavored here too to rest as much as possible upon 
documents. My chief study has lain, not in Thiers 
or Lanfrey, but in the Napoleon Correspondence. 
I may add that my view of the connection of Napo- 
leon with the Eevolution, and of the development 
of the Napoleonic out of the Eevolutionary age, is 
the result of much study of the latter as well as of 
the former. 

Beside original documents I have of course stud- 
ied the works founded on original documents which 
have appeared of late years. Among the recently 
opened sources to which this volume is indebted, 
I would mention particularly, on the earlier period, 
Jung's works ; on the period of the Directory, 
Hiiffer's, the later volumes of Von Sybel, and the 
study on the Egyptian expedition by Count Boulay 
de la Meurthe ; on the German wars, the genuine 
memoirs of Hardenberg, edited by Eanke, and 
Ranke's biography of him, Oncken on the ' War of 
Liberation,' and a long list of books already used 
by me in the 'Life and Times of Stein.' But some 
important works have appeared since that publica- 
tion, especially the second volume of Oncken, and 
Treitschke's history ; I may also mention the orig- 
inal researches which are now being made by A. 
Stern. 

Almost one-third of this volume is occupied by 
an essay on Napoleon, which is entirely new. It 



viii Preface. 

is designed to correspond with the History to which 
it is appended, and makes use of no materials but 
such as are furnished by the History. It could not 
therefore attempt either to analyze his character or 
estimate his genius. The question it deals with 
is rather his relation to his age, his place in the 
history of France and of Europe, and even on this 
question — I need hardly say — it offers only sug- 
gestions. It is only an essay ; it is not a treatise. 

Our portrait is from an engraving after a picture 
by Boilly, which represents Napoleon as First Con- 
sul, and bears date 29 Thermidor, an X. It was 
executed in mezzotint, and several impressions of 
it, all alike colored by hand (it is doubtful whether 
any uu colored impressions were published), are pre- 
served in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. We 
give the head ; but in the original, which is on 
a considerably larger scale than our copy, the por- 
trait is enclosed in an oval frame, below which is 
engraved a review in the Place du Carrousel, with 
the inscription ' Eevue du Quintidi.' 

The cast of the face of Napoleon was taken in 
wax on the morning after his death. It was 
brought to England in 1855, and was excellently 
engraved in the ' Illustrated London News.' We 
are indebted to the proprietor for permission to 
reproduce the wood-cuts. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BUONAPARTE. 



§ 1. Buonaparte's Birth and Family. — Military Edu- 
cation. — Early Authorship 9 

§ 2. Corsican Period 15 

§ 3. At Toulon. — Joins the Army of Italy. — Con- 
nection with the Robespierres. — Ordered to 
the Army of the "West. — Remains in Paris . 23 

§ 4. Checks Revolt of the Sections. — Marriage. — 

Commander of the Army of Italy .... 32 

CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL BONAPARTE. 

§ 1. Italian Campaign 37 

§ 2. Acts as Independent Conqueror. — Levying of 
Contributions. — His Italian Policy. — Ad- 
vance on Austria. — Preliminaries of Leo- 
ben. — Occupation of Venice. — Fructidor. — 

Treaty of Campo Formio 43 

§3. The Revolution of Fructidor ...._... 57 
§ 4. Returns to Paris. — Egyptian Expedition. — In- 
vasion of Syria. — Return to France ... 62 
§ 5. Revolution of Brumaire 73 



A 



X Contents. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE FIRST CONSUL. 

PAGE 

§ 1. Becomes First Consul 83 

§ 2. His Jealousy of Morean. — Campaign of Maren- 
go. — Treaty of Luueville. — The Concordat. — 
Treaty of Amiens 88 

§ 3. Reconstruction of French Institutions. — Grad- 
ual Progress towards Monarchy. — Nivose . 97 

§ 4. Rupture with England. — Execution of the Due 
d'Enghien. — The Emperor Napoleon. — Trial 
of Moreau 105 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE EMPEROR. 

§ 1 . Designs against England and the Continent. — 

Napoleon Crowned 116 

§ 2. Campaign against Austria and Russia. — Capitu- 
lation of Ulm. — Battle of Austerlitz. — War 
with Prussia. — Jena and Auerstadt. — Eylau. 
— Friedland. — Treaty of Tilsit 123 

§ 3. Napoleon as King of Kings 135 



CHAPTER V. 

REBELLION. 

§ 1. French Army in Spain. — Popular Rising in 

Spain. — Napoleon in Spain 145 

§ 2. First German War of Liberation. — Ratisbon. — 
Aspern. — Wagram. — Treaty of Schonbrunn. 



Contents. xi 

PAGE 

— War with Russia impending. — Divorce of 
Josephine. — Marriage with Marie Louise . . 154 

§ 3. Annexation of Holland. — Dissolution of the Al- 
liance of Tilsit. — Invasion of Russia . . . 164 

§ 4. In Poland. — Niemen crossed. — Smolensk. — 
Battle of Borodino. — Burning of Mosco\^. — 
Retreat from Moscow 171 

CHAPTER VI. 

FALL OF NAPOLEON. 

§ 1 . Wars of 181 3-1814. — War with Russia and Prus- 
sia. — Relations to Austria 182 

§ 2. War with Russia, Prussia, and Austria .... 195 

§ 3. Invasion of France by the Allies. — Napoleon 

abdicates 201 

§ 4. He retires to Elba. — Disquiet in France. — The 

Hundred Days. — Battle of Waterloo . . . 211 

§5. The Second Abdication. — Surrender to Eng- 
land. — Exile ia St. Helena. — Autobiography. 

— Death 224 



NAPOLEON'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 

CHAPTER I. 

HOW FAR NAPOLEON WAS FAVORED BY CIRCUMSTANCES. 

§ 1 . His Rise to Power 240 

§ 2. His Ascendency in Europe 243 

§ 3. His Conquests 245 

§ 4. Was he Invincible 1 249 



xii Contents. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW FAR NAPOLEON WAS SHAPED BY CIRCUMSTANCES. 

PAGE 

§ I. His Lawlessness 254 

§ 2. His Impressibility 263 

§ 3. His Relation to Parties 265 

& 4. His Signiticauce in French History 268 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT NAPOLEON WAS IN HIMSELF. 

§1. What was his Plan? 279 

§ 2. Origin of the Plan 286 

§3. Exec.ntion of the Plan 291 

§ 4. Was he sucoessful ? 295 

§ 5. How far his Inlluence was Beneficial .... 299 

§6. Napoleon judged by his Plan 303 



A SHORT HISTORY 



NAPOLEON THE FIRST. 



CITArTER I. 

BUONAPARTE. 

§ 1. Date of Duonapart<^s Birth. — Military Education. 
— Early Authorship, 

The family Buonaparte (so tlie name is written 
by Napoleon's father and by himself clown to 
1796, tliough the other spelling occurs in early 
Italian documents) was of Tuscan origin. A 
branch of it was settled in Corsica at least as 
early as the sixteenth century, from which time 
tlie Buonapartes appear as influential citizens of 
Ajaccio. They had an ancient title of nobility 
from the Genoese republic, and Napoleon's grand- 
father obtained letters of nobility also from the 
Grand Duke of Tuscany, They liad therefore the 
right to sign De Buonaparte, but ordinarily dropped 



10 The Buonaparte Family. [a.d. i769. 

the preposition of honor. Charles Marie de Buo- 
naparte (who was born in 1746, and studied law 
at tlie University of Pisa, where he took his doc- 
tor's degree in 1769) married at the age of eigh- 
teen Letitia Eamolino, who was not quite fifteen. 
The lady had beauty, but apparently neither rank 
nor wealth. In the children of this marriage the 
father, a somewhat indolent Italian gentleman 
with a certain taste for literature, seems traceable 
in Josepli, Jerome, and partly also in Lucien ; 
the energy of which Lucien had a share, which 
Caroline also displayed, and which astonished the 
world in Napoleon, is perhaps attributable to the 
Corsican blood of the mother. Thirteen children 
were born, of whom eight grew up. Tlie list of 
these is as follows : Joseph (king, first of Naples, 
then of Spain), iY«poZco?i, Lucien, Eliza (Princess 
Bacciochi), Pauline (married, first to General Le- 
clerc, afterwards to Prince Borghese), Caroline 
(married to Murat, became queen of Naples), 
Louis (king of Holland), Jerome (kiug of West- 
phalia). Of these the eldest was born in 1768, 
the youngest in 1784. 

Besides his brothers and sisters, Napoleon raised 
to importance JogcjtIi Fesch, half-brother of his 
mother, a Swiss on the father's side, who was after- 
wards known to the world as Cardinal Pesch. 



A.D. 1709.] Dafe of Napoleon's Birth. 11 

It is the accepted opinion that Napoleon was 
born at Ajaccio on August 15, 1769. This opin- 
ion rests indeed on the positive statement of 
Joseph, hut it is certain from documents that on 
January 7, 1768, Madame Letitia bore a son at 
Corte, who was baptized by the name of Nabuli- 
one. And even in legal documents we find con- 
tradictory statements about the time and place of 
birth, not only of Napoleon, but also of Joseph. 
It has been suggested that all difficulties disap- 
pear at once if we suppose that Napoleon and 
Nabulione were one and the same, and that Jo- 
seph was really the second son, whom the parents 
found it convenient to pass off as the first-born. 
This they may have found convenient when, in 
1779, they gained admission for a son to the mili- 
tary school of Brienne. A son born in 1768 would 
at that date be inadmissible, as being above ten 
years of age. On this supposition Napoleon was 
introduced by a fraud to that military career 
which changed the face of the world ! Never- 
theless it is certain from Liicien's memoir that of 
such a fraud nothing was known to the younger 
members of the family, who regarded Joseph as 
without doubt the eldest. 

After passing two or three months in a school 
at Autun for the purpose of learning French — he 



12 His MUitcmj Education. [a.d. i785. 

had hitherto been a thorough Italian — Napoleon 
entered Brienne on April 23 or 25, 1779, where 
he remained for more than five years, and then in 
October, 1784, passed, as 'cadet-gentilhonnne,' into 
the military school of Paris. In the next year, 
1785, he obtained his commission of lieutenant in 
the regiment La Fere, stationed at Valence. He 
had [already lost his father, who, undertaking a 
journey to France on business, was entertained at 
Montpellier in the house of an old Corsican friend, 
Madame Permou, mother of the celebrated memoir- 
writer Madame Junot, and died there of the dis- 
ease which was afterwards fatal to Napoleon, on 
February 24, 1785, at the age of thirty-eight 
years. 

The fact principally to be noticed about Napo- 
leon's extraction and boyhood is that he was by 
birth a noble, needy and provincial, and that from 
his tenth year his education was exclusively mili- 
tary. Of all the great rulers of the world none 
has been by breeding so purely a military special- 
ist. He could scarcely remember the time when 
he was not a soldier living among soldiers. The 
effects of this training showed themselves too evi- 
dently when he had risen to the head of affairs. 
At the same time poverty in a society of luxurious 
noblemen, and the consciousness of foreign birth 



^TAT. 16.] His Character. 13 

and of ignorance of the French language, made his 
school life at times very unhappy. At one time 
he demands passionately to be taken away, at an- 
other time he sends in a memorial, in which he 
argues the expediency of subjecting the cadets to 
a more Spartan diet. His character declared it- 
self earlier than his talents. He was reported as 
' taciturn, fond of solitude, capricious, haughty, ex- 
tremely disposed to egoism, seldom speaking, en- 
ergetic in his answers, ready and sharp in repartee, 
full of self-love, ambitious, and of unbounded as- 
pirations.' So he appeared to his teachers, and iu 
some stories, probably exaggerated, he is repre- 
sented as a complete Timon, living as a hermit, 
and perpetually at war with his school-fellows. 
His abilities do not seem to have excited wonder, 
but he was studious, and in mathematics and geog- 
raphy made great progress. He never, however, 
so Carnot tells us, became a truly scientific man. 
He had neither taste nor talent for grammatical 
studies, but was fond of books, and books of a 
solid kind. Of the writers of the day he seems to 
have been chiefly influenced by Eousseau and 
Eaynal. 

He is now a lieutenant of artillery in the service 
of Louis XVI. The next years are spent mainly 
with his regiment at Valence, Lyons, Douai, Paris, 



14 Early Authorship. [a.d. i789. 

Auxonne, Seurre, Auxonne again. But he takes 
long holidays with his family at Ajaccio, obtaining 
permission on the ground of ill health. Thus he 
was at Ajaccio in 1787 from February to October, 
again from December, 1787, to May, 1788, again 
from September, 1789, to February, 1791. During 
this period he is iDiincipally engaged in authorship, 
being consumed by the desire of distinction, and 
having as yet no other means of attaining it. He 
produces 'Letters on the History of Corsica,' which 
he proposes at first to dedicate to Paoli, later to 
Eaynal ; he competes for a prize offered by the 
Academy of Lyons for the best essay written ' to 
determine tlie truths and feelings which it is most 
important to inculcate on men for their liappiness.' 
Among his smaller compositions is ' The Narrative 
of the Masked Prophet.' Of all these writings, 
which are to be distinguislied from the pamphlets 
written by him Avith a practical object, it may be 
said that they show more character than literary 
ability. As the compositions of a boy they are 
indeed remarkable for their precocious seriousness ; 
but what strikes the reader most in them is a sort 
of suppressed passion that marks the style, a fierce 
impatience, as if the writer knew already how 
much he had to get through in a short life. But 
his sentiments, love of liberty, of virtue, of domestic 



^TAT. 20.] Corsican Period. 15 

happiness, are hollow, and his affectation of ten- 
derness even ridiculous. The essay, as a com- 
position, is positively bad, and was naturally 
unsuccessful 

§ 2. Corsican Period. 

Meanwhile his active life had begun with the 
Revolution of 1789. The first chapter of it is 
separate from the rest, and leads to nothing. 
That astonishing career, which has all the unity 
of a most thrilling drama, does not begin till 
1795. The six years which preceded it may he 
called his Corsican period, because for the greater 
part of it he may be thought to have regarded 
Corsica as the destined scene of his future life. 
It must be very summarily treated here. 

In 1789 the Italian island of Corsica had been 
for twenty years a dependency of France. But 
France had acquired it in a most unscrupulous 
manner by purchasing the rights of the republic 
of Genoa over it. She did this in 17G8, that is, 
when Corsica had contested those rights in a war 
of nearly forty years, and had been practically 
independent and happy for about thirteen years 
under the dictatorship of Pasquale Paoli. It was 
an act similar to the partition of Poland, and 
seems to mark a design on the part of France — 



16 Corsica before the Revolution, [a.d. 1789. 

M'hich had just suffered great colonial losses — to 
extend her power by way of the Mediterranean 
into the East. Paoli was compelled to take refuge 
in England, where he was still living when the 
French Revolution broke out. In the fall of 
Corsica a certain Matteo Buttafuoco played a 
disgraceful part. He had been sent by Paoli to 
treat as plenipotentiary with France, was won over 
by Choisexil, declared against the national cause, 
and appeared in the island as colonel of Louis XV.'s 
Corsican regiment. He too was still living when 
the States-General met, and represented there the 
noblesse of Corsica, while Salicetti, a name of no lit- 
tle prominence in the Revolution, was one of the 
representatives of the Corsican tiers etat. 

The Revolution w^as almost as dangerous an 
event to the relation between France and Corsica 
as to that between France and St. Domingo. 
Would the island assert its independence, and if 
so, could the Assembly deny its right to do this ? 
The islanders and the exiled Paoli at their head 
took a moderate view. France must guarantee a 
good deal of local freedom ; on such conditions, 
they thought, the relation might continue, if only 
to prevent the republic of Genoa from reviving 
its pretensions. Accordingly, on November 30, 
1789, Corsica was declared by the National 



jETAT. 20.] Principles of Buonaparte Family. 17 

Assembly to be a province of France on the motion 
of Salicetti himself, and the protest against this 
decree made by Genoa was treated with contempt. 
Paoli left London, was received in France with 
an ovation, appeared before the National Assembly 
on April 22, 1790, where he received the honors 
of the sitting, and landed in Corsica on July 14, 
after an absence of twenty-one years. Thus was 
Corsica reconciled to France by the Eevolution of 
1789 ; but the good work was undone by the 
Second Eevolution of 1792. 

Since 1769 the French power in the island had 
rested mainly on the noUesse and clergy. The 
Buonaparte family, as noble, had been on the un- 
patriotic side ; Napoleon's father appears always 
as a courtier of the French governor Marboeuf and 
as a mendicant at Versailles ; Madame Letitia in 
soliciting a place for her son Louis styles herself 
' the widow of a man who always served the king 
in the administration of the affairs of the island 
of Corsica.' It is therefore a remarkable fact 
that, almost immediately after the taking of the 
Bastille, Napoleon hurried to Ajaccio and placed 
himself at the head of the revolutionary party 
with all the decision characteristic of him. He 
devoted himself to the establishment of a National 
Guard, of which he might hope to be the La 
2 



18 NitpitUon Ih'clarrs for Ju-rohi/ioii. [a.i>. 1700. 



FiiV(>ll(\ iiiul lu) ])ultlislu'(l a IcUi'v to lUittafuocn, 
w liii'Ii, |iiitiH'rlv iiiidcrsldod, is a sdlcuiu di'sciiion 
of till' luiiuiiilcs (if his raiuily, .siinihiv to that of 
]\rii'al)i'Mii. This U'ltiT has all tlio intensity ol' his 
other early \vritin,!;n, bnt Jar more eireetivencss. 
It lashes r.iittafiioi'o for his treas >n of l7l)S, (.le- 
seribing hinj as a cynie, wlio IkuI no bi'liol" in 
virtue, but supposeil all men to bo jfuiiled by 
Bellisii inliTt'st. '.riie inveetive has lost its edgo 
l"or us who know that tlu' author soon after openly 
professoil tliis \tMy ereeil. In ileelarini^ for tho 
llevolution he obeyed the r(>al inelinalion of his 
fe(^lin;^3 at. tlu> time, as wi* may see from his 
M'riting'S, whieh are in the re\ ohiliiuiary toui^ of 
llaynal. Ihit had he net really, we nuiy ask, 
ail nltiM'ior t>bjei't, — vi.:. to make fort^iea inde- 
pvMnlenl of I'ranee, and to restore the old rule 
ol' Taoli, aimiu:;- liiuisi'lf at Paoli's sueeession ? 
Probably he wished to see sueh a result, but he 
had always two strini;s (o his bow. In his hotter 
to r.ullafuoeo he ean^'uUy avoids separating Cor- 
siean bbeity from tlie liberty olVered by the 
Freneh Kevolution, Had tho opportunity otVered, 
he might no do\ibt have stood forth at this time 
as the libevatof of t^orsiea ; bnt eireumstanees tlid 
not prove favorable, and ho drifted gradually in 
quite the opposite direction. 



iETAT. 21.] Forfeits his French Commission. 19 

, In October, 1700, ho mot Paoli at Orezza, whoro 
Corsica constituted itself as a French department, 
Paoli bein;^ president, Salicetti procureur-;^6n(;ral 
syndic. Arena and Pozzo di Borgo (also from 
Ajaccio; members of, the Directorium. Paoli is 
said to have hailed Napoleon as ' one of Plutarcli's 
men.' As the only Corsican officer trained at a 
royal military school. Napoleon might aspire to 
become commander of a jiaid native guard which 
it was proposed to create for the island. But 
France had misgivings about the use to which 
such a guard might be put, and the Minister of 
War rejected tlie proposal. In the next year, 
however, he was .successful in a second attenipt to 
get the command of an armed force in Corsica, and 
betrayed in tlio oourio of this attempt how much 
more intent he was at this time upon Corsican than 
upon French affaiis. It was decided to create four 
battalions of national volunteers for Corsica, and 
Napoleon became candidate; fr^r the post of lieu- 
tenant-colonel in the district of Ajaccio. The 
choice was in the hands of the volunteers them- 
selves, and in pursuing his canvass Napoleon did 
not hesitate to outstay his furlough, and thus to 
forfeit his French commission by wilful absence 
from a great review of the whole French army 
which was appointed for the opening day of 1792. 



20 His Restoration to the Army. [a.d. 1792. 

He was, however, elected, having, it is said, exe- 
cuted the first of his many couijs d'etat by violently 
imprisoning a commissioner sent down to superin- 
tend the election. We can understand his eager- 
ness when we remark that anarchy in Corsica was 
steadily increasing, so that he may have believed 
that the moment for some military stroke was at 
hand. He did not long delay. At the Easter 
festival of 1792 he tried to get possession of 
Ajaccio under cover of a tumult between the 
volunteers and the refractory clergy. The stroke 
failed, and he lied from tlic island. The European 
war was just breaking out, and at Paris everything 
was in confusion ; otherwise lie would probably 
have been tried by court-martial and shot. 

^A rebel in Corsica, a deserter in France, wliat 

was he to do ? He went to Paris, where he ar- 
rived on May 21. The Second Revolution was at 
hand, and he could observe while no one had lei- 
sure to observe him. He witnessed the lOtli of 
August and the downfall of the monarchy. To 
him this revolution was a fortunate event, for the 
new Government, attacked by all Europe, could 
not dispense with the few trained officers whom 
the emitrration had left. On Ausjust 30 his name 
was restored to the army list with the rank of 
captain, a commission dated back to February G, 



iETAT. 23.] The Second Revolution. 21 

and arrears of pay. lit; was saved from tlio most 
desperate condition to which he was ever in his 
whole life reduced. On September 2 (terrible 
date !) he is engaged in withdrawing his sister 
Eliza from St. Cyr (the House of St. Louis having 
been suppressed). The next step he takes is re- 
markable. The great war which was to carry him 
to the pinnacle of fame was now in full progress. 
By undeserved good luck his military rank is re- 
stored to him. Will he not hurry to his regiment, 
eager to give proof of liis military talents ? No, 
his thoughts are still in Corsica. On the pretext 
of conducting his sister to lier home ho sets off 
without delay for Ajaccio, where he arrives on the 
17th. The winter was spent in the unsuccessful 
expedition, which may be called Napoleon's first 
campaign, made from Corsica against the island 
of Sardinia. On his return he found a new scene 
opened. The Second Kevolution was beginning to 
produce its effect in Corsica, which was no mere 
province of France, and in which everything was 
modified by the presence of Paoli. Elsewhere the 
Convention was able by its Ke])resentatives in 
Mission to crush opposition, but they could not 
so crush Corsica and PaolL There was thus a 
natural opposition between tlic Convention and 
Paoli, and the islanders began to fall into opposite 



22 Revolution extends to Corsica, [a.d. 1792. 

parties, as adherents of the former or of the latter. 
It might have been expected that Bonaparte, who 
all his life had glorified Paoli, and whose early let- 
ters are full of hatred to France, would have been 
an enthusiastic Paolist. But a breach seems to 
have taken place between them soon after Napo- 
leon's return from Paris, perhaps in consequence 
of his escapade of Easter, 1792. The crisis came 
on April 2, when Paoli was denounced before the 
Convention, among others by Marat, and it was 
decreed that he and Pozzo di Borgo should come 
to Paris and render an account of their conduct to 
the Convention. Paoli refused, but, with the re- 
markable, perhaps excessive, moderation which 
characterized him, offered to leave Corsica if his 
presence there appeared to the Convention unde- 
sirable. The islanders however rallied round him 
almost as one man. 

There could be no reason why the horrors of the 
Second Eevolution should extend to Corsica, even 
if we consider them to have been inevitable in 
France. For a Corsican patriot no fairer oppor- 
tunity could offer of dissolving witli universal ap- 
probation the connection with France which had 
begun in 1769. Napoleon took the oj^posite side. 
He stood out with Salicetti as the leading cham- 
pion of the French connection and the bitterest 



^TAT. 23.] Nivpoleons Dislike to the French. 23 

opponent of Paoli. Was his motive envy, or the 
bitterness caused by a recent personal quarrel with 
Paoli? We cannot positively say, but we can 
form an estimate of the depth of that insular pa- 
triotism which tills the ' Letters on the History of 
Corsica.' Paoli summoned a national consulta at 
the end of May, and the dissolution of the French 
connection now began. The consulta denounced 
the Buonaparte family by name. Napoleon an- 
swered by desperate attempts to execute his old 
plan of getting possession of the citadel of Ajaccio. 
But he failed, and the whole family, with Madame 
Letitia and Fesch, pursued by the fury of the peo- 
ple, took refuge in France. With this Hijra the 
first period of Napoleon comes to an end. 

§3. At Toulon. — Joins the Army of Italy. — Connec- 
tion loiih the Robespierres. — Ordered to the Army 
of the West. — Remains in Paris. 

Up to this time Napoleon has regarded the 
French nation with dislike, French ways and 
habits as strange and foreign, and he has more 
than once turned aside from a French career when 
it seemed open to him. Henceforth he has no 
other career to look for, unless indeed it may be 
possible, as for some time he continued to hope, to 
make his way back to Corsica by means of French 



24 At Toulon. [a.d. 1793. 

arms. A certain change seems now to pass over 
his character. Up to this time his writings, along 
with their intensity, have had a highly moral and 
sentimental tone. He seems sincerely to have 
thought himself not only stronger and greater but 
better than other men. At school he found him- 
self among school-fellows who were *a hundred 
fathoms below the noble sentiments which ani- 
mated himself,' and again much later he pro- 
nounced that ' the men among whom he lived 
had ways of thinking as different from his own 
as moonlight is from sunlight.' Probably he still 
felt that he had more vivid thoughts than other 
men, but he ceases henceforth to be a moralist. 
His next pamphlet, 'Le Souper de Beaucaire,' is 
entirely free from sentiment, and in a very short 
time he appears as a cynic, and even pushing 
cynicism to an extreme. 

It w^as in June, 1793, that the whole family 
found themselves at Toulon in the midst of the 
Corsican emigration. France was in a condition 
not less disturbed than Corsica, for it w^as tlie 
moment of the fall of the Girondins. Plunged into 
this new party strife, ISTapoleon could hardly avoid 
taking the side of the Mountain. Paoli had been 
in a manner the Girondin of Corsica, and Napo- 
leon had headed the opposition to him. In ' Le 



iETAT. 24.] ' Le Souper de Beaucaire.' 25 



Soiiper de Beaucaire ' (published in August, 1793), 
wliich is the manifesto of this period, as the ' Let- 
ter to Buttafuoco ' is of the earlier period, he him- 
self compares the Girondins to Paoli, and professes 
to think that the safety of the state requires a 
deeper kind of republicanism than theirs. The 
immediate occasion of this pamphlet is the civil 
war of the South, into which he was now plunged. 
Marseilles had declared against the Convention, and 
had sent an army under Kousselet which had occu- 
pied Avignon, but had evacuated it speedily on 
being attacked by the troops of the Mountain 
under Carteaux. Napoleon took part in the attack, 
commanding the artillery, but it seems an un- 
founded statement that he specially distinguished 
himself. This was in July, and a month later the 
pamphlet was written. It is a dialogue between 
inhabitants of Marseilles, Mmes, and Montpel- 
lier and a military man. It is highly charac- 
teristic, full of keen and sarcastic sagacity, and of 
clear military views ; but the temperature of its 
author's mind has evidently fallen suddenly; it 
has no warmth, but a remarkable cynical coldness. 
Among the Eepresentatives in Mission recently 
arrived at Avignon was the younger Eobespierre, 
with whom Salicetti was intimate. Napoleon, 
introduced by Salicetti and recommended by this 



26 Napoleon at Marseilles. [a.d. 1793. 

]»:iiii|ilil('( , ii;i( iirnlly n>s(! liii^'li in his f;iv(»r. Wo 
must not bo misled liy tlio violciuHi with wliicli, 
us l^'irst, (\)iisul, ho iUinckod tliis ]);ivtv, and tJio 
lioi'i'or ho thou iii\)(ossod to loi'l fur (hoir oriuios, so 
us to oouohido that liis couuoctiou with liio daoo- 
bin«, and os])ooially tho IJobospiciros, was at the be- 
<;iuuiu;4 ])ur(.'ly uooidoulal awd |)r()l'ossioual. Wliat 
ooulouiporary ovitU'uco wo havo exhibits Buoua- 
])a.rto Jit tiiis timo as hohliuij,' tho ]au!j,uai',o of a tor- 
rorisl,, aiul wo shall scHi how narrow ly ho osoapod 
juM'isliini;- witii tho liobos]norros in 'J'horniidor. 
or ('oui'si' it is iidt nooossary to clisbolii'vo Mav- 
mont, wlion lio says that llio utvocities of tho 
Ivobospiorrisls wovo iiovor to Napoleon's taste, and 
that lio did mueh to check theui within tho sphere 
o[' his iulhuMU'o. 

lie maiihed with Cartoaux into Marseilles late 
in August, and abtiut tho same time Toulon deliv- 
ered itself into the hands of the MiiL^lisli, Just at 
this niouionl ho was ])roniolod to tho rank of c/irf 
lie htlaillon, in tho second regiment of artillery, 
which gave him jtraclically the connnand ol" tho 
artillery in the I'oreo which was now lornied to 
l)Osioj;'o Toulon. Tho story ol" his relations with 
the generals who wore sent successively to conduct 
tho sie«;e, Cartoaux the ])ainter, Dopj'ot the physi- 
cian, Dugomniier tho bravo veteran, and of his 



JETAT. 24.] Joins the Army of Italy. 27 

discovery of tlif, Li'iui wn,y to iako Toulon, lu'c iici-- 
haps somewhat \i.v^f',n{\;ivy, })ut lie inay ])n)|);i,l)ly 
have heen elofpient and ])f',r,siiuHiv(! at the comieil 
of war held on Novfirnher 2o, in wliifJi the ])l!ui 
of the siege was laid down. 'I'hat he distinguished 
himself in action is more certain, for Dugommier 
writes: 'Among those who distinguished tiieni- 
selves most, and wlio most ,'iid(;d me to rally the 
troops and push them forward, are Citizens Euona 
Parte, commanding the artillery, Arena and Cer- 
voni, adjutants-general ' (MunUcMr, I)(;ceTtd)er 7, 
ITl'.'i). J[e was now niiuied gfiueial of brigade. 

JI(i now ])as;;cs out of tli(! (;ivil into the foreign 
war. The military system (d' the Convention is 
by this time in full 0])eration. Distinct armi(!S 
face each enemy, and the gntiit milit;uy names of 
the devolution are already in nuin's mouths. The 
Army of the North has Jourdan, Leehirc, Yan- 
damnie, lirune, Mortier ; that of the Moselle has 
Hoche, Tie.ssi6res, Mor(;au ; tlKitoftln- liliinc;, l'i(;he- 
gru, iScherer, Berthier; that of the West, Marceau 
and Kleber. Buonaparte joins the Army of Italy 
as general of artillery and inspector-general; to 
the same army is attached Massena as general of 
division; ])um(irbion is gencral-in-chief. Tt is 
now that for the first time we find the young 
man's exceptional ability remarked. Itestless 



28 Connection tvith the Robespierres. [a.d. 1794. 

pushing ambition he had shown all along, but that 
he was more than a mere intriguer seems to have 
been first discerned by the younger Eobespierre, 
who in a letter of April 5, 1794, describes him as 
* of transcendent merit.' In the brief campaign of 
the Army of Italy which occupied the month of 
July, 1794, he took no part, while Mass^ua com- 
manded in the illness of Dumerbion. But in July 
he made his first essay in diplomacy. Genoa was 
among the earliest of the many feeble neutral 
states which suffered in the conflict of the Revolu- 
tion with the Great Powers, and at the expense 
of which the revolutionary empire was founded. 
Bonaparte was sent b}^ the younger Eobespierre to 
remonstrate with the Genoese Government upon 
the use which they suffered the Coalition to make 
of their neutral territory. He was in Genoa from 
July 16 to July 23 ; he urged the French claim with 
success ; he returned to Nice on July 28. But July 
28, 1794, is the 9th Thermidor, on which his patron 
perished with the elder Eobespierre on the scaffold. 
Probably the connection of Napoleon with the 
Eobespierres was closer than he himself at a later 
time liked to have it thought. ' He was their man, 
their plan-maker,' writes Salicetti ; ' he had ac- 
quired an ascendency over the Eepresentatives 
(i.e. especially Eobespierre junior) which it is 



iETAT. 25.] Engages in a Maritime Expedition. 29 

impossible to describe,' writes Marmont. Accord- 
ingly after Thermidor the Representatives in Mis- 
sion who remained with the Army of Italy — viz. 
Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte — suspended Bona- 
parte from his functions, and placed him provision- 
ally under arrest (August 6). He was imprisoned 
at the Fort Carr^ near Antibes, but fortunately 
for him was not sent to Paris. On the 20th 
he was set provisionally at liberty on the ground 
of ' the possible utility of the military and local 
knowledge of the said Bonaparte.' This spelling 
begins already to creep in. 

His escape was due, according to Marmont, to 
Salicetti's favor and to the powerful help he him- 
self succeeded in procuring ; ' he moved heaven 
and earth.' His power of attaching followers also 
now begins to appear ; Junot and Marmont, who 
had become acquainted with him at Toulon, were 
prepared, if he had been sent to Paris, to set him 
free by Ivilling the gens d'armes and carrying him 
into the Genoese territory. Marmont has graphi- 
cally described the influence exerted upon himself 
at this time by Napoleon ; ' there was so much 
future in his mind,' he writes. 

This was a passing check ; early in 1795 he 
suffered a greater misfortune. He had been en- 
gaged in a maritime expedition of which the object 



30 ' A Good ArtillerUt: [a.d. 1795. 

was to recover Corsica, now completely in the 
l)o\ver of the English. On IMarch 3 he embarked 
with his brother Lonis, JMnrmont, and others on 
tlie brig ' Amitie.' On tlio lith the lleet set sail. 
It fell in with the English, lust two ships, and re- 
turned defeated. The enter]»rise was abandoned, 
and by the end of the same montli we fnul Lacondie 
Saint-Michel, nunuber of tiio Connnittee of Tub- 
lie Safety, sending orders to the Cicneral of Bri- 
gade r>onaparte, to proceed immediately to the 
Army of the AVest in order to take command of 
the artillery there. He left JMarseilles for Paris 
on May 5, feeling that all the ground gained by 
his activity at Toulon, and by the admiration he 
had begun to inspire, was lost again, that his ca- 
reer was all to reconnnence, and in peculiarly 
unfavorable circumstances. 

This may almost be called the last ill turn he , {\ 
ever received from fortune. It has been attributed 
to the (Jirondist S])itc of a certain Aiiltry against 
the Montagnard Bonaparte. Tlie I ruth seems 
rather to be that the Committee of Public Safety 
felt that the Corsican element was too strong in 
the Army of Italy ; they remarked that ' the pa- 
triotism of these refugees is less manifest than 
their disposition to enrich themselves.' Lacombe 
Saint-Michel know Corsica ; and the new general 



iETAT. 26.] Ill the War Office. 31 

of the Army of Italy, Schdrer, remarks of Bona- 
parte just at this moment that ' he is a really good 
artillerist, but has rather too much ambition and 
intrigue for his advancement.' 

The anecdote told by Bonaparte himself of his 
ordering an attack of outposts in order to treat a 
lady to a sight of real war, ' how the French were 
successful, but necessarily no result could come of 
it, the attack being a pure fancy, and yet some 
men were left on the field,' belongs to the last 
months of his service in the Army of Italy. It is 
worthy of notice, as showing his cynical insensi- 
bility, that he acted thus almost at the very begin- 
ning of his military career, and not when he had 
been hardened by long familiarity with bloodshed. 
On his arrival at Paris he avoids proceeding to 
the Army of the West, and after a time obtains 
from Doulcet de Pontecoulant a post in the topo- 
graphical section of the War Office. Here he has 
an opportunity of resuming his old work, and we 
find him furnishing Doulcet, as he had before fur- 
nished Eobespierrc junior, with strategical plans 
for the conduct of the war in Italy. Late in Au- 
gust he applies for a commission from Government 
to go to Constantinople at the head of a party of 
artillerists in order to reform that department of 
the Turkish service. He sends in a testimonial 



32 The Definitive Repuhlic. [a.p. 1795. 

from ])oulcet ^v]lich describes him as* a citizen 
who may he usefully employed whether in the 
artillery or in any other arm, and even in the de- 
partment of foreign affairs.' But at this moment 
occurs the crisis of his life. It coincides with a 
remarkable crisis in the history of France. 

§ 4. Checks Revolt of the Sections. — Marriage. — Co7n- 

majider of Army of Italy. 

The Second Ptevolution (1792) had destroyed 
the monarchy, but a republic, properly speaking, 
had not yet been established. Between 1702 and 
1795 the government had been provisionally in 
the hands of the National Convention, which had 
been sunnnoned, not to govern, but to create a new 
constitution. Now at length, the danger from for- 
eign enemies having been averted, the Convention 
could proceed to its proper work of establishing a 
definitive republic. 

But there was danger lest the country, when 
appealed to, should elect to undo tlic work of 1792 
by recalling the Bourbons, or at least should avenge 
on the Mountain the atrocities of the Terror. To 
preserve the continuity of government an expe- 
dient was adopted. As under the new constitution 
the assemblies were to be renewed periodically to 
the extent only of one-third at a time, it was 



^TAT. 26.1 Napoleon and Barras. 33 



decreed tliat the existing Convention sliould ]je 
treated as the first Corps Ldgislatif under the new 
system. Thus, instead of being dissolved and 
making way for new assemblies, it was to form 
the nucleus of the new legislature, and to be re- 
newed only to the extent of one-third. This ad- 
ditional law, which was promulgated along with 
the new constitution, excited a rebellion in Paris. 
The sections (or wards) called into existence a 
revolutionary assembly, which met at the Oddon. 
This the Convention suppressed by military force, 
and the discontent of the individual sections was 
thereby increased. At tlio same time tlioir confi- 
dence was heightened by a check they inflicted 
upon General Menou, who, in attempting to disarm 
the section Lepelletier, was imprisoned in the Eue 
Viviennc, and could only extricate himself by 
concluding a sort of capitulation with the insur- 
gents. Thereupon the Convention, alarmed, put 
Menou under arrest, and gave the command of the 
armed force of Paris and of the Army of the Inte- 
rior to Barras, a leading politician of th(3 day, who 
had acquired a sort of military reputation by hav- 
ing held several times the post of Representative 
in Mission. Barras knew the Army of Italy and 
the services which Buonaparte had rendered at Tou- 
lon, and nominated him second in command. 
3 



34 * Vend4miaire.' [a.d. 1795. 

It does not seem that Buonaparte showed any 
remarkable firmness of character or originality of 
genius in meeting the revolt of the sections on 
the next day (Vendemiaire 13 — i.e. October 5) 
with grape-shot. The disgrace of Menou was a 
warning that the Convention required decisive 
action, and the invidiousness of the act fell upon 
Barras, not upon Bonaparte. Indeed in the official 
report drawn by Bonaparte himself his own name 
scarcely appears ; instead of assuming courageously 
the responsibility of the deed, he took great pains 
to shirk it. He appeared in the matter merely as 
the instrument, as the skilful artillerist, by whom 
Barras and the Convention carried their resolute 
policy into effect. ]Moreover, though his arrange- 
ments were able, there seems no truth in the story 
of his despatching Murat at two o'clock in the 
morning to bring up artillery from Sablons. It 
will be observed that on this occasion he defends 
^.he cause of Jacobinism. This does not require 
to be explained, as at a later time he took much 
pains to explain it, by the consideration that, 
odious as Jacobinism was, on the particular occa- 
sion it was identified with ' the great truths of our 
Eevolution.' The truth is that in his first years 
he appears uniformly as a Jacobin. He was at 
the moment an official in the Jacobin Government, 



^TAT. 26.] Napoleon's Marriage. 35 

and speaks in his letters of tlie party of the sec- 
tions just as a Government official might be ex- 
pected to do. 

In this affair he produced an impression of real 
military capacity among tlie leading men of France, 
and placed Barras himself under a personal obliga- 
tion. He was rewarded by being appointed in suc- 
cession to Barras, who now resigned, commander 
of the Army of the Interior. In this position, 
political and military at the same time, he preluded 
to the part reserved for him later of First Consul 
and Emperor. He also strengthened his new 
position materially by his marriage with Joseph- 
ine de Beauharuais nee Tascher. His first choice 
had been the friend of his family, Mme. Permon, 
wdio, however, rejected him. The legend tells of a 
youth calling upon him to claim the sword of his 
father, guillotined in the Terror, of jSTapoleon treat- 
ing the youth kindly, of his mother paying a visit 
of thanks, of an attachment following. But even 
if he was really attached to Josephine, we must - .,:^ 
not think of the match as one of mere unworldly -^y^ 
affection. It was scarcely less splendid for the -^ 
young General Bonaparte than his second match ^ 
was for tlie Emperor Napoleon. Josephine was 
prominent in Parisian society, and for the lonely 
Corsican, so completely without connections in 



36 The Act of Marriage. [a.d. i796. 

Paris or even in France, such an alliance ^vas of 
priceless value. She had not much either of char- 
acter or intellect, but real sweetness of disposition. 
Her personal charm was not so much that of beauty 
as of grace, social tact, and taste in dress. The 
act of marriage is dated Ventose 19, Year IV. {i.e. 
March 9, 1796), and is remarkable because it 
declares Napoleon to have been born in 1768 
instead of 1769, and Josephine in 1767 instead of 
1763. On this day he had already been appointed 
to the command of the Army of Italy. His great 
European career now begins. 



^TAT. 27.] European Crisis. 37 



\/ 



CHAPTER II. 

GENERAL BONAPARTE. 

~~~^ § 1 . Italian Campaign. 

The fifth year of the Eevolutionary War was 
opening. It was already evident that this war 
would change the face of Europe, and almost cer- 
tain that it would create a new French ascendency. 
The Coalition, which in 1793 seemed to have 
France at its mercy, had been paralyzed by the 
reopening of the Polish question in its rear. Prus- 
sian troops were recalled from the Ehine to oppose 
Kosciuszko, and, at the same time, the mutual 
jealousy of Prussia and Austria, which had dom- 
inated German politics for half a century, was sud- 
denly rekindled. France reaped the benefit of this 
diversion. In the campaign of 1794 she expelled 
the Austrians from Belgium, in the following win- 
ter she overran Holland, expelled the Stadtholder, 
established the autliority of the so-called Patriots, 
and thus wrested this state from the Coalition. 
No similar blows had been struck by France since 



38 Second Phase of the Coalition, [a.d. i796. 

the age of Louis XIV., ami, what was still more 
portentous, the Coalition, instead of rallying its 
forces, began at this moment rapidly to dissolve. 
Thus the system of ]<^urope was already broken 
up. A new age had begun in which France stood 
forth as a conquering Power, her territory already 
enlarged, her military spirit exalted, her army in- 
creased and disciplined, beyond all former experi- 
ence. J')onai)arte did not introduce, but found 
already introduced, the principle of conquest. 

Prussia, with most of the North German princes, 
had retired from the war in April, 1795 ; Sjjain 
followed the example in July. The Coalition as- 
sumes its second shape, which it was to keep 
almost till the pacilication of 1801 ; it is now a 
Triple Alliance of Eussia, Austria and England; 
and liussia as yet is an inactive, not to say a perfid- 
ious, member of it. Practically Prance has to deal 
on the Continent only with Austria, who in the 
campaign of 1795 shielded Germany against the 
invasion of Jourdan and Pichegru. The French 
are already conquerors, but in this campaign they 
meet with ill-fortune. At the moment when Ven- 
d(5miaire revealed Bonaparte to the world, Clerfait 
and Wurmser were striking blows which forced 
the French armies to recross the Rhine and for 
the moment saved Germany. But only Bonaparte 



^TAT. 27.] Second Phase of the Coalition. 39 

lias quite firmly grasped the truth that there is no 
real enemy but Austria, for, though all can see 
that Prussia Las deserted her on the IHiine, it 
seems that Sardinia still stands by her in the Alps. 
Bonaparte is sure that Sardinia will suHiuin Aus- 
tria as little as Prussia had done, and has as little 
interest to continue the war, now that she has lost 
Savoy and Nice, and sees France stronger than 
ever. Can Sardinia but be pushed aside, Austria 
may be attacked in Lomljardy, where she is an 
alien power. Bonaparte has long pictured himself 
rousing the Italian population against her, driving 
her across tlie Alps, and co-operating with the 
Army of the Rhine l)y an attack in Hank. Since 
Vendemiaire he had discussed this plan with Car- 
not, wlio was now one of the five Directors, and it 
was perhaps Carnot — at least so we are told in the 
Reponse a Bailleul — who procured Bonaparte's 
appointment to the Italian command. 

At the moment the French armies everywhere 
were paralyzed by financial need ; it seemed likely 
that in 179G France would achieve nothing for 
want of means. For this difficulty also Bonaparte 
had a resource. From the outset the French hail 
levied contributions in the territories they invaded. 
By frankly adopting this system, by making war 
support war, Bonaparte would turn poverty itself 



40 Bonaparte's Idea. [a.d. i796. 

into a spur and a warlike motive. He announced 
to the army without the least disguise : ' Soldiers, 
— You are naked and ill fed ; I will lead you into 
the most fruitful plains in the world. Eich prov- 
inces, great cities will be in your power. There 
you will find honor, and fame, and wealth.' The 
French soldier thus received at the same time a 
touch of the wolf, which made him irresistible, and 
a touch of the mercenary, which made him in the 
end useful to Bonaparte. 

This order of the day was issued from Nice on 
March 27. The campaign began early in April. 
This, the first of Bonaparte's campaigns, has been 
compared to his last. As in 1815 he tried to sep- 
arate Blticher and Wellington, hoping to overcome 
them in turn, so now with more success he attacked 
first the Austrians under Beaulieu and then the 
Sardinians under Colli. Defeating the Austrians 
at Montenotte, Millesimo, and Dego, he turned on 
the 15th against Colli, defeated him at Ceva and 
again at Mondovi. Almost in a moment the 
calculation of Bonaparte was justified. Sardinia, 
which might have made a long and obstinate de- 
fence behind the fortifications of Turin, Alexandria 
and Tortona, retired at once from an alliance of 
which she was weary. She signed the convention 
of Cherasco on the 28th, yielding her principal 



iETAT 27.] The Idea Realized. 41 

fortresses into the hands of France. What Bona- 
parte had so long dreamed of he accomplished in 
a single month, and turned himself at once to the 
conquest of Lombardy. 

The mouth of May was devoted to the invasion. 
On the 7th lie crossed the Po at Piacenza, stormed 
the bridge over the Adda at Lodi on the 10th, 
and, as the Archduke who governed Lombardy 
had quitted Milan on the 9th, retiring by Bergamo 
into Germany, Bonaparte entered Milan on the 
15th. That day Bonaparte told Marmont that 
his success hitherto was nothing to what was re- 
served for him. ' In our days,' he added, ' no one 
has conceived anything great ; it falls to me to 
give the example.' June was spent in consolida- 
ting the conquest of Lombardy, in spoiling the 
country, and repressing the insurrections which 
broke out among the Italians, astonished to find 
themselves plundered by their ' liberators.' Prom 
the middle of July the war, as far as Austria is 
concerned, becomes a war for Muutua. Austria 
makes desperate and repeated efforts to raise the 
siege of this all-important fortress. In June she 
withdraws from the Pthine one of her armies and 
a general who had won renown in the preceding 
campaign, Wurmser. He arrives at Innspriick on 
June 26th; here in Tyrol he assembles 50,000 men. 



A 2 Occupation of Lomhardy. [a.d. i 796, 



At the ciul of -luly lie ikIvuiici'.s on both sides of Iho 
Liikc^ ol' (larda, uiid lliri'iit(nis l>()ii;i|):irti''s ('omiuu- 
niiMiUoiis by uccupying lU'csc-ia. Doiniparli! abiiu- 
dciu'd llio sioi;(i of Muul.ua, and broui^ht his w liolo 
i'orcc to uu'cL the cucuiy. 'I'ho ])()sila()U l\)r a uio- 
UH'iil, st'cnicd d(^s|)(•l•al(,^ llo I'allcd councils of 
war, and ilcclarcd in liivor of U'tn'atin;^' across the 
Adda. When AuLjcreau resisted this deterniinii- 
tion, he h'll the room (h'clariii,^' that lie would have 
iiothiiij^ to do with the mat tcr, and, when Au^creau 
iisked who was to givu orders, answered '\'ou!' 
The iles])(!i'alo course was rewarded with success. 
'I'lie Austrians were dd'ealctl at ( 'ast ijdioiie on Au- 
gust ;!, uiid retii'ed into 'ryrol. IWit Muntua had 
bt'iai revictuall(Hl, and llonaparte had sul'lertMl the 
loss of Ids sie|;e-train. 

Ivuly in Se|>leinber jionapartc, lia\in;4 received 
reinforcements from i'Vauce, assumed the i)ffensive 
against Wurnist'r, and after defeating him at I>as- 
sano forced him to throw Inm.sell" with the remain- 
der of his army into I\lantaui (September If)). 

At (he end of October Austria had assembled 
a new army of nD.ODO men, mostly, however, raw 
rei-ruits. They were placed under the eonnnand 
of Allvint/,y. [Bonaparte was to be overwlu'lnu'd 
between tliLs army and that of Wurniser issuing 
from Mantua. lUit by a night nuireh lie fell upon 



iBTAT. 27.] War for Mantua. 43 

Allvintzy's rear at Arcole. The surprise failed, and 
Bonaparte's life was at one moment in great dan- 
ger. But after three days of obstinate conflict the 
Austrians retreated (Novei^ber 15-17). From Ar- 
cole he used ever afterwards to date his profoimd 
confidence in liis own fortune. Mantua, however, 
still held out, and early in January (1797) a fourth 
and last attempt was made by Allvintzy to relieve 
it, but he was again completely defeated at Eivoli 
(Jan. 14), and a whole Austrian corps d'arm^e 
under Provera laid down its arms at Roverbella 
(Jan. 16). On receiving the intelligence of this 
disaster Wurmser concluded the capitulation by 
which the French were put in possession of Man- 
(tua Feb. 2). 

§ 2. Acts as Independent Conqueror. — Levying of Con- 
tributions. — His Italian Policy. — Advance on 
Austria. — Preliminaries of Leohen. — Occupation 
of Venice. — Coup d^jStat of Fructidor. — Treaty 
of Campo Formio. 

Such was the campaign of Bonaparte against 
Austria, by which he raised his reputation at 
once above that of all the other generals of the 
republic, Jourdan, Moreau, or Iloche. But he 
had acted by no means merely as a general of 
the republic against Austria. He had assumed 



44 Characteristics of Italian Campaign, [a.d. i796. 

from the beginniug the part of an independent 
conqueror, neither bound by the orders of his Gov- 
ernment nor by any rules of international law or 
morality. 

The commander of a A'ictorious army wields a 
force which only a Government long and firmly 
established can hold in check. A new Govern- 
ment, such as the Directory in France, having no 
root in the country, is powerless before a young 
victor such as Bonaparte. In vain the Directory 
devised a plan by whicli the Army of Italy should 
be divided between Bonaparte and Kellermann, 
while the whole diplomacy of the campaign should 
be intrusted to Salicetti as Commissioner. Bona- 
parte defeated these manceuvres as easily as those 
of Beaulieu and Colli. In truth the coujp d'etat of 
Brumaire was in his mind before he had been many 
weeks at the head of an army. But long before 
he ventured to strike the existing Government, we 
see that he has completely emancipated himself 
from it, and that his acts are those of an indepen- 
dent ruler, as had been those of Ca?sar in Gaul or 
of Pompey in the East, while the Eoraan republic 
was still nominally standing. As early as June, 
1796, he said to Miot, ' The commissioners of the 
Directory have no concern with my policy; I do 
what I please.' 



^TAT. 27.] Spoliation. 45 

From the outset it had been contemplated to 
make the invasion of Italy financially profitable. 
Contributions were levied so rapaciously that in 
the duchy of Milan, where the French had pro- 
fessed to appear as brotliers and liberators, a 
rebellion against them speedily broke out, which 
Bonaparte suppressed with the merciless cruelty 
he always showed in such cases. He kept the 
promise of his first proclamation ; he made the 
army rich. ' From this moment,' writes Mar- 
mont, ' the chief part of the pay and salaries was 
paid in coin. This led to a great change in the 
situation of the officers, and to a certain extent 
in their manners. The Army of Italy was at that 
time the only one which had escaped from the 
unprecedented misery which all the armies had 
so long endured.' The amount of confiscation 
seems to have been enormous. Besides direct 
contributions levied in the conquered territory, 
the domains of dispossessed Governments, the 
revenues and property of churches and hospitals, 
were at Bonaparte's disposal. There seems reason 
to think that but a small proportion of this 
plunder was ever accounted for. It went to the 
army chest, over which Bonaparte retained the 
control, and the pains that he took to corrupt his 
officers is attested in the narrative of Marmont, 



46 Bonaparte's Personal Policy, [a.d. irar.. 

who relates that Bonaparte once caused a largo 
sum to pass through his hands, and when he took 
great pains to render a full account of it, as the 
officers had then unejlciir dc delicaicsse, Bonaparte 
blamed him for not liaving kept it for himself. 

As he made himself iiuancially independent of 
the Government, so he Logan to develop an inde- 
pendent policy. Hitherto he has had no politics, 
but has been content to talk the Jacobinism of 
the ruling party ; now he takes a line, and it is 
not quite that of the Government. He had 
already, in June, 170G, invaded the Papal terri- 
tory, and concluded a convention at Bologna by 
which lie extorted lirieen millions from the Pope; 
immediately after the fall of Mantua he entered 
the States of the Church again, and concluded the 
treaty of Tolentino on February 10. We see 
how freely he combines dijilomacy Avith war ; he 
writes without disguise to the Directory, October 
5 : ' You incur the greatest risk whenever your 
general in Italy is not the centre of everything.' 
But now in dealing with the Pope he separates 
his policy from that of the Directory. He de- 
mands indeed the cession of liologna, Ferrara, 
and the Eomagna, besides Avignon and the A"e- 
naissin, and the temporary cession of Ancona. 
l>ut he recognizes tlie Pope by treating with him, 



a:tat. 27.] Treatment of Neutrals. 47 



and towards the Catholic religion and tho ]iriost- 
hond lie shows hiin.sclf unexpectedly inovcirul. 
lieli'non is not to be altered in the ceded Letja- 
tions, and Bonaparte extends his protection in the 
most ostentatious manner to the prelrcs inscr- 
ment^s, whom he found in large numbers in the 
States of the Church. This was the more marked 
as they were at this time objects of the bitterest 
persecution in France, Here is the first indication 
of the policy of the Concordat, but it is also a 
mark of I'onapavte'a independent position, the 
position ratlier of a prince than of a responsible 
official ; nay, it marks a deliberate intention to 
set himself up as a rival of tlio Government. 

His manner of conducting the war was as un- 
precedented as his relation to tlie Government, 
and in like manner foreshadowed the Napoleonic 
period. It was not that of a civilized belligerent, 
but of a universal conqueror. The Eevolution 
had put all international law into abeyance. By 
proclaiming a sort of crusade against monarchy it 
had furnished itself with a pretext for attacking 
almost all States alike, for almost all were eitlier 
monarchical or at least aristocratic. Bonaparte in 
Italy, as in his later wars, knows nothing of neu- 
trality. Thus Tuscany, the first of all states to 
conclude a treaty witli the French republic, is not 



4S Developmcul of (Vi(tr((cU'r. |a.i>. irur. 

tlicr(>l)y saved from invasion. Bonaparte's troo]is 
inarcli in, sei/.e Le!j,lmni, wnd take i^ossession of all 
the Mn;j,lish ])roperty found in tli;it jiort. INIore 
renuiv];a1il(! still \h tlie treatment of Vi-niee. Tiio 
territory of the repnblie is turned uncennnoniousl}'' 
into a Held of battle between J''raiiet> and Austria, 
and at. tiie (Mid of tlu> ^\■ar the A'enetian republic 
is bhitted ont of the map. 

•'"urther is to bo riMnarked tlu^ enrious devidop- 
niciit w hich was t;iv(>n to tlie prineiple of plunder. 
'rh(! rinaiiii;d distress of Franco and the inipover- 
ishnient of tlit> army at the o]H'ning of the cam- 
paign udi;ht aeeount for mnch simple spoliation, 
r.nt tlu' praetie(> was now inlrotlueed of transh'r- 
riiit;- ])ietiires and statues from the Italian ]\alaecs 
and galleries to France. This sinjj,ular revival of 
]irimitivo barbaric nunlos of making war becomes 
na)ri' striking Avhen mc retlect that the sj)oiler of 
Italy was himself an It^alian. 

AltogetluM' these eamjKiigns brought to light a 
]ierson;dily entirely without precedent in modern 
JMuuipean history. True, the lu'volution b(dniid 
him and the circumstances around him wi're abso- 
lidtdy unpreciHlentinl. ]\Iarmont remarked at the 
linu> tlu> rajtid and ('ontinual develo])ment which 
jnsl then showed itself in JVnia])arte's cliaractor. 
M*]verv day,' he wi'ites, 'he seemed to see before 



^-TAT. 27.] Ilis Opinion of /he French. 49 

liiiii II, new liori/oii.' An uiiiliifjoiis iiiiiii li:i,i| 
Sii(lil('iily h(ic()iii(i ;i.\v;in\ lli;il, u ciirtu'r ciilircly nii- 
]);ir;ilK'l('(l wan open Lo liiiii, if only he (■oiild liml 
niularily und unsc'.i'ni)iil()nM energy l-o (Mitc^r ujton 
it. AiM In lliis I, hat- lie. had lived lur llire(i years 
in the mills!, of disordci'.s iiiid horrors siieh a,s 
ini^diL \V(!ll havo di,s,sij)aied all j)rinei|)l(!M, hidiiifn, 
nnd veslraints. Kvvm as (-arly as the l.'5Lh V(!n- 
demiairu \\'(! lind him imiircssed wilh a, lalalisl/ 
Lclicr in lii.s own luck (' 1 roc,(aved no liiiil. ; I a,m 
always Inek}',' he writes), and tliure are iiidientions 
that his wondcirfnl eseajx; at Arcole ji,reatly liei^ht- 
oneil Ihis l)eli('l" in a, mind niitnrally sonuiwliat 
superstitions. 

At this moinenl, as Honapartti's private ])olitieal 
views hoffin to apjxiar, his .lacohinism, even his 
i'e]iulilicanism, slips IVom him like a rolu;. As 
curly as May, 17i)7, Ik; said to I\Iiot and Mel/i, 
'Do you HU])posu that I. trinmph in Italy lor the 
glory of the lawyers ol" tli(! Directory, a ('ariiot or 
a iJarras !^ l)o you suppose I mean l-o fniind a. 
re|)ublie ? What an idea! a repidilie of thirty 
millions of peoph; ! with our mnialM, our vices! 
how is Hueli a thin;,' possil)l(^ '! The nation wants 
a chief, a chief eovei'ed with ^loi'y, not theories of 
govcrnm(!nt, phrases, ideological essays, that the 
French dfj not understand. They want, some play- 
4 



50 Trcaiy of Tolcntino. [\.p. 1707. 

things ; tluit will bo cuougb ; they will play with 
them ami lot thouiselvos bo led, always supposing 
thoy are olovorly prcvonted from seeing the goal 
towards which they are moving.' His contempt 
for the French, such as they had become imder the 
inlluence of Versailles ami the salons of I'aris, and 
his opinion of their unfitness for republican in- 
stitutions, \vas sincere ; it was the opinion of a 
Corsican accustomed to more primitive, more mas- 
culine ways of life ; we meet with it in his earliest 
leiters, written before the thought of becoming 
himself the ruler of France had occurred to him. 
When the fall of IMantua had established the 
French power in North Italy, Bonaparte's next 
tliought was to strike at the heart of Austria from 
this new basis. Early in March, having secured 
his position in Italy by the treaty of Tolcntino 
witli Eomc and by a treaty with Sardinia, he set 
his troojis in motion. He sent Joubert with 
18,000 men into Tyrol, while he prepared to 
march in person upon Vienna from Friuli through 
Carinthia and Styria. But Austria had still one 
resource. The year 1796, which had given Bona- 
parte to the French republic, had given her too a 
great general. The Archduke Charles, who had 
succeeded Clerfait in Germany, and who had been 
left by the departure of Wurmser for Italy utterly 



^TAT. 27] Preliminaries of Lcoben. 51 

unable to resist the French wJien tliey advanced 
in June under Jourdan and Moreau, acliioved in 
the autiiniii a masterpiece of strategy. About tlie 
same time that Bonaparte won the battle of 13as- 
sano, ho won that of Wiir/.burg, and by the end of 
October he had forced both French armies to re- 
cross tlie Iihinc. lie is now despatched to meet 
the other invasion, threatening Anstria from tlie 
south. 

But instead of being allowed lo take up a strong 
position ill tlic I'yrol ;iiid to iiwail rcinrorcAUiionlM, 
lie was instructed to atlvance to Friuli, tliough 
with iusuflicient and demoralized troops. lUma- 
parte dislodged him from the line of thoTagliamento, 
ihi'ii iVom ili;it of tliu Isoii/,o, und advaiiccul stead- 
ily until ho reached Leoben in Styria on April 13. 
]>ut he too felt his position to be hazardous, espe- 
cially as he was not seconded by any forward move- 
ment of the Khine armies. Hence he had himself, 
as early as Miinsh 31, proposed negotiation to tlie 
Arcliduke. At Leoben an arniisticc of six days 
was concluded. 

The preliminaries of Leoben were now signed 
(April 18). This was the first step in a long and 
slippery negotiation, which led only to a renewal 
of the war at the end of 1708. The preliuiiiiaries 
afterwards suffered much modification in the treaty 



52 Concessin)is to Austria. f.\.n. 1707. 

of Canipo l\)rniio. whioli was itsolT soon swopt 
ftway. Tlic jn-i/o of the Avar was Boluiuni, and 
lliis was now ihhUhI by Austria. In return wo 
might expect to lind the Italian conquests of 
]>onaparto restored. Instead of tliis a Cisalpine 
rcinihlic is estahlishcd, nominally independent, Init 
nwUy, like the l>ntavian re]nihlie, under French 
tutelage. Nevertheless Inmaparte, as he said him- 
self, was in no position to dictate a peace. Accord- 
ingly he grants to Austria, as an indennn'ty. the 
(\)ntinen(al possessions o[' the \'enetian ri^jmblic 
as far as (he Oglio, with Istria and Palmatia. 
Here is a lu^w ]>artition of Toland ! The \\Mietian 
rciuiblic Mas a nculral state, hut its neutrality had 
been utterly disregarded by Inuiajnirte during the 
Mar, and as its territory had been freely trani]^led 
on by his troops, irritation had necessarily arisen 
anumg the Venetians, thence i[uarrels Mith the 
French, thence on the side o[' the French an attack 
on the aristocratic government and the setting \ip 
of a democracy. 0[' all this the residt was now 
found to be that the A'euctian empire was a con- 
quered territory, which in her next treaty V^'ancc 
could cede in exchange fiu" any desired advantage. 
So far the ]neliuuuaries did not afiect the Ger- 
manic empire, but ouW the liereditary possessions 
of Austria, Vmt they ilcalt also with the empire, 



a:tat. 27. 1 War with Venice. 53 

find lievo tlioy wcro recklessly and, as it jirovcd, 
r;il;illy iuuhigiious. On tliu oni; side, i^'rancc cdn- 
cedcd tiie integrity of the empire, on the other 
side the Emperor agreed to recognize the limils of 
France as decreed by tlic laws of the re[)ublic. 
Perhaps neither party (piite knew, but perhaps 
both parties suspected, that these concessions were 
inconsistent with each otlier. 

After so many defeats this arrangomiMit, lawless 
as it was, must have seemed to Austria un('\])ect- 
edly satisfactory. Slio had been studying lor 
tliirty years how to exchange Uelgiuni for a pro- 
vince more conveniently situated. 15avaria had 
been her first object, but the Km[)eror Josopli li;i,d 
also cast his eyes on Venice. She had now lost 
Belgium by the fortune of war, but at the last 
moment the very equivalent she coveted was cast 
iniii her laj). 

The summer of 1707 was passed by Bonaparte 
at Montebello, near Milan. Here he rehearsed in 
Italy the part of emperor, formed his court, and 
accustomed himself to all the functions of govern- 
ment, lie was chielly engaged at this tune in 
accomplishing the dissolution of the Venetian re- 
pul)lic. I[(; had begun early in the spring by 
provoking insurrections in P>rescia and Bergamo. 
IuA[)ril the insolence of a I'rench odicc^r provoked 



54 Revolution at Venice. [a.d. i797. 

a rising against tlie French at Sal 6, lor which 
Junot, sent by Bonaparte, demanded satisfaction 
of the senate on the 15th. The French now at- 
tempted to disarm all the Venetian garrisons that 
remained on the terra firma, and this led to a ris- 
ing at Verona, in which some hundreds of French- 
men were massacred (April 17). On the 19th a 
French sea-captain, violating the customs of the 
port at the Lido, was fired upon from a Venetian 
fort. Bonaparte now declared that he would be a 
new Attila to Venice, and issued a manifesto in 
the true revolutionary style. The feeble Govern- 
ment could only submit. A revolution took place 
at Venice, and French troops took possession of 
the town. On May 16 a treaty was concluded by 
Bonaparte ' establishing peace and friendship be- 
tween the French republic and the republic of 
A^enice,' and providing that ' the French occupa- 
tion should cease as soon as the new Government 
should declare that it no longer needed foreign 
assistance.' ' A iDrincipal object of this treaty,' as 
Bonaparte candidly explained to tlie Directory, 
'was to obtain possession without hindrance of 
the city, the arsenal, and everything.' At the 
time that he was thus establishing friendship, he 
was, as we know, ceding the territory of Venice to 
Austria. 



iETAT. 28] Treaty of Campo Formio. 55 

When we read the letters written by him at this 
period, we see tliat already, only a year after he 
assumed for the first time the command of an army, 
he has fully concei\'ed the utmost of what he 
afterwards realized. Had he been shown in vis- 
ion at this time what lie was to be at his zenith 
in 1812, when he was the astonishment and terror 
of the world, he would probably have said that it 
fell short of his expectations. 

In the preliminaries of Leoben such essential 
matters had been left unsettled or dependent 
on doubtful contingencies, that they were tacitly 
abandoned by both parties. The fall of Venice in 
May suggested a different arrangement. Austria 
might now have the town as well as the terra 
fir ma, and in return for this might make new con- 
cessions. As she ceased now to look to England, 
which was entering on a separate negotiation, she 
consented to accept a new basis. The second 
negotiation began at the end of August, and pro- 
duced the Treaty of Campo Formio in the middle 
of October. 

In return for Venice, Bonaparte is resolved to 
have the Ehinc frontier towards Germany, and 
that of the Adige instead of the Oglio in Italy. 
But at an early stage of the conferences occurred 
the Revolution of Fructidor, which had the effect 



56 Revolution of Fructidor. [a.d. 1797. 

of reviving iu the French Government the war- 
frenzy of the time of the Convention. The negotia- 
tion with England was broken off, and imperious 
orders were sent to Bonaparte to exact the ut- 
most from Austria without ceding Venice. Much 
of the month of September is occupied with a 
struggle between the General and his Government. 
This ends, as might be expected, in the submission 
of the Directory, who are brought to see how 
much they need Bonaparte and how little he needs 
them. 

On September 27 begins a new diplomatic duel, 
that between Bonaparte and the eminent Austrian 
diplomatist, Cobenzl. Bonaparte is now residing 
at Passariano, in a villa belonging to Doge Manin, 
and the conferences take place at Udine, in the 
neigliboi'hood. Cobenzl contends for the integrity 
of the Empire, but his government is secretly pre- 
pared to barter this for a sufficient indemnity to 
the Austrian House in Italy. His instructions 
rather than Bonaparte's imperious manner caused 
him to yield at last, and yet the famous stor}^ of 
the breaking of the porcelain vase is perhaps not 
entirely groundless. At least the despatches of 
Cobenzl abound in complaints of his outrageous 
behavior and gasconades. At one time he 'kept 
on drinking glass after glass of brandy,' at another 



2ETAT. 28.] Campo Formio. 57 

he was 'evidently drunk/ at another he confided 
to Cobenzl tliat ' lie felt himself the equal of any 
king in the world.' 

In the end he overcame both his own Govern- 
ment and that of Austria, and the treaty which 
was signed on October 17, and takes its name from 
tlie little village of Campo Formic (more correctly 
Campo Formido) close to Udine, practically sealed 
the doom of the Holy Eoman Empire. It gave 
Venice, Istria, Dalmatia, and all Venetian territory 
beyond the Adige to Austria, founded the Cisalpine 
republic, and reserved for France, besides Belgium, 
Corfu and the Ionian Islands. A congress was to 
open at Eastatt, and Austria bound herself by a 
secret article to do her best to procure for France 
from the Germanic body the left bank of the 
Rhine. By retaining the Ionian Islands Bonaparte 
gave the first intimation of his design of opening 
the Eastern question. 

§3. The Revolution of Fructidor. ■/.- ■ -' /'' 

Meanwhile a new French Eevolution had taken 
place. A new reign of Jacobinical fanaticism had 
begun, which was to last till Bonaparte, who had 
done nmch to introduce it, should bring it to an 
end. This had happened in the following manner. 

The difficulty which Bonaparte had dissipated 



58 The Five Hundred. [a.d. i:o:. 

by his cannon in A'ondeniiaive had quickly returned, 
as it could not tail to do. A Jacobinical regicide 
republic had to support itself in the midst of a 
nation which was by no means Jacobinical, and 
which had rejnvsentative assemblies. These assem- 
blies, renewed by a third for the second time in tlie 
spring of 17l'7. placed Pichegru. suspected of 
royalism, in the chair of the Five Hundred, and 
Europe began to ask whether the restoration of 
the luiurbons was about to follow, llonaparte at 
]\Iontebello thought he perceived that the Austrian 
negotiators were bent upon delay. 

The rising party Avas not perhaps mainly royalist ; 
its most conspicuous representative. Carnot. the 
Director, was himself a regicide. In the main it 
aimed only at respectable government and peace, 
but a minority were open to some suspicion of 
royalism. This susjncion was fatal to tliC whole 
party, since royalism had at this time been thor- 
oughly discredited by the follies of the ('iniijn's. 
An outcry is mised by the soldiers. "We can meas- 
ure the steady progress which had been made by 
the military junver since Vendeniiaire ; it had then 
been a tool in tlie hands of the Governnumt. now it 
gives the law and makes the Government its tool. 
The armies oi' the IJhine. represented by Hoche. 
oppose the new movement ; as to Bonaparte, 



.KTAT. 28.] Increase of Military Power. 59 



lio was driven into Uui same coui'.so l)y si'U'-dc- 
Ibnco. l)uiHulartl. a. tl('])ulv, had calU'd alliMilioii 
1.(1 Ids monstrous Lrcatmciil. ot" llio Vcncliau repub- 
lic, and liad anticipated the judgment of history 
by oomjiarinij; it to tho partition of Poland. Bona- 
]>arle had already divnli^eil to a li'iend the seiTt't 
that ho despised republicanism, but this attack 
nrado him onco more, at least in profession, a re- 
publican and a .lacobin. It is, however, ])robable 
that he would in any case ha.vi5 siiUul ^\•illl the 
majority of the Directory, sinci; anything which 
favoreil the r)ourbons was a hindranc(^ to his am- 
bit iiui. iVnd thus the armies of lh(> r(>]>ublie stood 
united against tho tendency of pul)lic oi)inioii at 
homo. Imperialiam stood op^iosed to parliamen- 
tary govornment, believing ilstdf — such was tho 
bewilderment of the lime — to be more in favor 
of tho sovereignty of the people than lh(> ])eoi)le 
itself, and not aware that it was jiaving the way 
for a military despot. 

Tho catastrophe came on 18tli l<'i'uctidor (Sep- 
tember 4, 1707), when Augercau, one of ]U)na.parte's 
generals of division, Avho had been sent by Hona- 
])arto to Paris, surrounded the Corps liCgislatif 
with 12,000 UHiTi and arrested the most obnoxious 
reju'esentativGS, while another force marched to the 
Luxembourg, arrested the Director Barthelemi, and 



00 The ISth Fnictidor. \x.v. kd:. 

woiilil have arrested (\\rnot had he not i"eceived 
AvaniinL:; in time to make liis escape. This stroke 
was tolUnved by an outrageous proscription of tlie 
new jxuty, of whiuu a large number, consisting 
]>artly of nieiuhers of tlie Councils, partly of 
journalists, were transi>orted to die at Oayeinie, 
and the elections were annulled in forty-eight 
departments. 

Such was Fructidor. which may ho considered 
as the third o[' the revolutii>ns which compose the 
complex event usually known as the French l\ev- 
ohition. In ITSi^ the ahsi>lute monarchy had given 
place to a constitutional monarchy, which was deti- 
nitively established in 17;M. In 1 7 O'J the consti- 
tutional monarchy fell, u'iving i^lace to a republic 
which \\as detinitively established in 17i^">. Since 
171^5 it had been held that revolution was over, 
and that France was living under a constitution. 
But in Fructidor this constitution also fell, and 
government became revolutionary onee more. It 
was evident that a third constitution must be es- 
tablished ; it was evident also that this constitution 
must set np a military form of government — that 
is, an imperialism; but two more yeai's passed be- 
fore this was done. 

The benefit of the change was reaped in the end 
by Inmaparte. Naturally he favored it and took 



a:tat. 2S.1 Result of Fructidor. Gl 

a great shave in contriving it. But it seems an ex- 
aggeration to roprosciit him as the exclusive or 
even the principal author of Fructidor. Hocho 
took tlic same side as Bonaparte ; Augereau outran 
hiui (and yet Angereau at this time was by no 
moans a more echo ot" Bonaparte) ; the division of 
the Army of Ualy conunanded by Berna(U)tte, 
which liad been recently detached from the Ariuy 
of Sambre-et-Meuse, and stood somewhat aloof 
from Bonaparte's influence, sided with him in this 
instance. The truth is that the rising party of 
]\Ioderates gave offence to the whole military world 
by making peace their watcliwonl. Outside the 
armies too there was profound alarm in the whole 
republican party, so that the circle of JMadamo de 
Staiil was strongly Fructidorlan, and this certainly 
was not guided by tlu; influence of Bonaparte, 
though Madame de Staiil was then among his 
warmest admirers. When the blow had been 
struck, Bonaparte knew how to reap the utnuvst 
advantage from it, and to exliil)it it in its true light 
as mortal at the same time to the Moderates and 
to the republican CTOvernmont itself, which now 
ceased to be legal and became once more revolu- 
tionary, and as favorable only to the military ])o\vcr 
and to the rising imperialism. He congratulated 
tlie armies on tlie fall of the enemies of the soldier 



62 Death of llochc. [a.h. iror. 

ami ospoeially of the Army of lUily/ but accorded 
only the faintest approval to the Directory. 

The death of Hoclie, occurring soon after, re- 
iiio\'ed from Bonaparte's path his only rival in 
the aiVections of the already omnipotent soldiery. 
JliK'ho alone among the generals beside Inniaparte 
had shown political talents ; had he lived longer, 
he might have plaj'cd with success the part in 
■which ]\Ioreau afterwards failed. 

-§ 1. lictunis to Paris. — Kiji/ptian Expedition. — In- 
vasion- of Si/ria. — Jutnrn to France. 

Ixinaparte now left Italy, setting out from 
IMilan on Xovemlun- 17, made a living visit to 
liastatt, where the congress had already assem- 
bled, and reached Paris on December 5. "What 
next wiudd be attempted by the man who at 
twenty-seven had conquered Italy and brought — 
momentarily at least — to an end the most memo- 
rable Continental war of modern times ? From a 
s]>eech deliMMwl by him on the occasion of his 
reception by the Directory (Dec. 10) it appears 
that he had two thoughts in his mind — to make 
a revolution in France (' when the happiness of 
the French people shall be based on the best [or 
on better] organic la^^s, all Europe will become 
free ') and to emancipate C recce i^' the two most 



JET AT. 28.] Plans for the Future. 63 

boautiful jKvrts of Europe, once so illustrious for 
arts, scieuces, uud the great men of whom they 
were the cradle, see with the loftiest hopes the 
genius of liberty issue from the tombs of their 
ancestors '). Ho had now some months in which 
to arrange the execution of these plans. The 
Directory, seeing no safety but in giving him 
employment, now committed the war with Eng- 
land to his charge. He becomes ' g6n(^ral-en-chef 
de I'armi^e d'Angleterre.' His study of internal 
politics soon landed him in perplexit}''. Should 
he become a Director, procuring an exemption 
from the rule wliit'h rciiuired the Directors to be 
more than forty years of ago ? He could decide 
on nothing, but felt himself unprepared to mingle 
in French party strife. He decided therefore that 
' the pear was not ripe,' and turned again to the 
military schemes, which might raise his renown 
still higher during the year or two which the 
Directory would require to ruin itselll It seemed 
possible to combine war against England with the 
Oriental plan, which had been suggested to him, 
it is said, by Monge at Passariano. During the 
last war between Ivussia and Turkey some publi- 
cists (including Volney, an acquaintance of Bona- 
parte's) had recommended France to abandon her 
ancient alliance with the Turk and seek rather to 



04 France and Egypt. [a.p. 1798. 

t^liavo Nvith Iviissia in his sp.>ils. Thus was sug- 
gostod to InMiaparto tho thought of sei/.iug Greece, 
and tlio dissolution of the A'enotiau Empire seemed 
to bring ii within tlie range o{ pmetieal polities. 
Now, as head o{ the Army oi Knghmd. lie ilxed 
his eyes on Egypt also. In India the game was 
not yet quite lost for Franee. hut England had 
now seized the Tape of Cuxul Hope. To save 
therefore what remained of her establishments in 
Imlia. Franee must oeeupy F.gypt. She must not 
only eotuiuer hut eoloni.:e it (^* if forty or fifty 
thousatid F.urojiean fannlies tixed their iuilustries, 
their laws, and their administration in Egypt, 
India would be presently lost to the English 
luueh more even by the foree of events than by 
that K^i anus 'V Sueh was the seheme. aeeording 
to whieh Turkey was to be partitioned in the 
eourse of a war with England, as Veniee had dis- 
aj^peared in the eourse oi a war with Austria. 

To this seheme it might be objeeted that it 
eould seareely fail to kindle a new European war 
nunv uni\-ersal than that whieh had just been 
brought to a elose. Pnit it was alivady evident 
thai the treaty of CamjKi Formio woidvl lead to 
no real paeitieatiou. For the tide of militarism 
in Franee eould not be arrested for a moment ; 
seareely a mouth psissed but was marked by some 



^:rAT. US.] A(j<jrcs,sio)i and Annc.i'allon. (15 

now a<j;grossiou niul amiuxatioii. In the spring ot" 
1798 tliu old constitution of Switzerland was over- 
thrown, French tr()o])a entered JU'iu and seized a 
treasure of 40,00i»,0()0 IVancs. At the saiue time 
a quarrel was picked with Ihc Tiipal (Jovijrnnicnt, 
it was ov(Mlhrown, tiie treasury phnidered, and 
the aged Vo\n\ Tins V!., carried into captivity. 
Thus, as r.erlhier saiti, money was ruvnislied i'or 
the Egyptian cani))aign ; hut on tlie other hand 
Europe was thoroughly roused ; England could 
meet the threatened attack hy lorming a new 
Ciialilion, and at the; beginning of May, three 
weeks before Uonajjarte set sail, the pi'obability 
of a iu>w Continiuital war was already so great 
that he writes, for th(! benelit o^ Oeneral llrune, a 
phin for deri'nding Italy against an attack by a 
superior lurce of Austrians. 

Jhit if so, was it not iuadn(>ss in the Directory 
to banish llonaparte ait)ng with ;U),000 men and 
GeniMals Murat, rHMtiiier, Desaix, Ivk'ber, Lannes, 
anil Marmont on the eve of a new struggle with 
Europe ? To ns this criticism is irresistil)ly sug- 
gcsteil l»y the event. We can siu; that the Knglish 
licet barred Ihi^ n^turu of th(! expccUlion, and that 
]ionaparte liimself only made his way b;ick by mi- 
raculous good fortune. Hut had the French (lov- 
ernment been able to fin'csce this, tliey would have 
5 



66 Failure in Egnpt. [a.d. 1:93. 

perceived that the undertaking was not merely rash 
at that particular niomeut, but essentially imprac- 
ticable. For the English fleet did not merely 
detain the expedition, but frustrated all its pro- 
ceedings, reconquered Egypt and Malta, and forced 
Bonaparte to retire from Syria. It appears that 
the energetic interference of England was not at 
all anticipated. From Bonaparte's letters ^v^itteu 
on board ' L'Orient ' it would seem that he scarcely 
realized the terrible risk he ran ; it is to be con- 
sidered that the superiority of the English marine 
had not yet been clearly proved, and that the name 
of Nelson was not yet redoubtable. But also it 
appears likely that the Avhole enterprise was based 
upon the assumption that England had retired from 
the Meditermnean. She had given up Corsica, 
and had been compelled by the alliance of the 
three maritime Powers, France, Spain, and Hol- 
land, to employ her whole naval force in blockad- 
ing the western harbors from Cadiz to the Texel. 
Meanwhile France had advanced as England had 
retired. She controlled Corfu, Ancona, Ceuoa, 
Corsica. So much she had acquired without op- 
position from England, and she proceeded now 
with confidence to complete her empire over the 
Mediterranean by establishing stations at Malta 
and Alexandria. Bonaparte certainly did not 



^.TAT. 28.] Arrival at Malta. 67 

mean to go into bauishnient ; tlic vast plans 
M'liicli lie paraded were not to be executed by 
himself in person, but only by the Egyptian col- 
ony which he was to found, for not only did he 
promise to return in October, but he actually di- 
rected his brother Joseph to prepare for him a 
country-house in Burgundy against the autumn. 
He set sail on May 19, having stimulated the zeal 
of his army, which he called ' one of the wings of 
the Army of England,' by promising that each 
soldier shoulil return ricli enougli to buy six ' ar- 
peuts ' of land (the Directory were obliged to deny 
the genuineness of the proclamation), and, eluding 
Nelson, who had been driven by a storm to the 
island of St. Pietro near Sardinia, arrived on June 
9 before Malta, where a squadron from Civita Vec- 
chia and another from Ajaccio had preceded him. 
This island was in the possession of the Knights 
of St. Jolm of Jerusalem, who acknowledged tlie 
King of Naples as their feudal superior and tlie 
Czar as their protector. To attack them was the 
direct way to involve France in war both with 
Naples and Russia. Bonaparte, demanding ad- 
mission into the harl)or for liis ileet, and receiv- 
ing answer that the treaties which guaranteed the 
neutrality of ]\Ialta permitted only the admission 
of four ships, attacked at once, as indeed he had 



68 Tlie Egyptian Campaign. [a.d. 1799. 

been expressly cominauded by the Directory to do. 
The people rose against the knights ; the grand 
master, Hompesch, opened negotiations, and on 
the 12th Bonaparte entered La Valctte. He is 
enthusiastic about the strength and importance of 
the position thus won. ' It is the strongest place 
in Europe ; those who would dislodge us must pay 
dear.' He spent some days in organizing a new 
Government for the island, and set sail again on 
the 19th. On July 2 he issues his hrst order in 
Alexandria. 

During the passage we find him prosecuting his 
earlier scheme of the emancipation of Greece. 
Thus from ]\Ialta he sends Lavalette with a let- 
ter to Ali Pasha of Jauina. His plan therefore 
seems to embrace Greece and Egypt at once, and 
thus to take for granted the connnand of the sea, 
almost as if no English fleet existed. The miscal- 
culation was soon made manifest. Bonaparte him- 
self, after occupying Alexandria, set out again on 
the 8th and marched on Cairo; he defeated the 
Mamelukes first at Chebreiss and then at Eniba- 
beh, within sight of the Pyramids, where the 
enemy lost 2,000 and the French about 20 or 30 
killed and 120 wounded. He is in Cairo on the 
24th, where for the most part he remains till 
February of 1799, But a week after his ar- 



^TAT.30.] Invasion of Syria. 69 

rival ill Cairo the lloet which had brought hini 
from France, with its admiral, Brueys, was de- 
stroyed by Nelson in Aboukir Bay. For the 
first time, in reporting this event to the Directory, 
it seems to flash on Bonaparte's mind that the 
English arc masters of the sea. The grand design 
is ruined by this single stroke. France is left at 
war with almost all Europe, and with Turkey also 
(for Bonaparte's hope of deceiving the Sultan by 
representing himself as asserting his cause against 
the Mamelukes was frustrated), and her best gen- 
erals with a fine army are imprisoned in another 
continent. 

It might still be possible to produce an im- 
pression on Turkey in Asia, if not on Turkey in 
Europe. The Turks were preparing an army in 
Syria, and in February, 1799, Bonaparte antici- 
pated their attack by invading Syria with about 
12,000 men. He took El Arish on the 20th, then 
Gaza, and arrived before Jaffa on March 3. It 
was taken by assault, and a massacre commenced 
which, unfortunately for Bonaparte's reputation, 
was stopped by some oflticers. The consequence 
was that upwards of 2,000 prisoners were taken. 
Bonaparte, unwilling either to spare food for thena 
or to let them go, ordered the adjutant-general to 
take them to the sea-shore and there shoot them, 



70 St. Jean d'Acre. [a.p. i799. 

taking precautions to prevent any from escaping. 
This was done. ' Now,' writes Bonaparte, ' there 
remains St. Jean d'Acre.' This fortress was the 
seat of the pasha, Jezzar. It is on the sea-shore, 
and accordingly England could intervene. Admiral 
Sir Sidney Smitli, commanding a squadron on the 
coast, opened lire on the French as they approached 
the shore, and was surprised to find his fire an- 
swered only by musketry. In a moment he di- 
vined that the siege artillery Mas to conre from 
Alexandria by sea, and very speedily he discovered 
and captured the ships that carried it. On March 
19 Bonaparte is before Acre, but the place receives 
supplies from the sea, and support from the Eng- 
lish ships, while his artillery is lost. He is de- 
tained there for two whole months, and retires at 
last without success. This check, he said, changed 
tlio destiny of the world, for he calculated that 
the fall of Jezzar would have been followed by the 
adhesion of all the subject tribes, Druses and 
Christians, which would have given him an arm}' 
ready for tlie conquest of Asia. 

The failure had been partially redeemed by a 
victory won in April over an army which had 
marched from the interior to the relief of Acre 
under Abdallah Pasha, and which Bonaparte de- 
feated on the plain of Esdraelon (the battle is 



a;tat. 30.] Mount Tabor and Aboukir. 71 

usually named from Mount Tabor). lu the iniddle 
of May the retreat began, a counterpart on a small 
scale of tlie retreat from Moscow, heat and pesti- 
lence taking the place of frost and the Cossacks. 
On the 24th he is again at Jaffa, from which he 
writes his report to tlic Directory, explaining tliat 
he had deliberately abstained from entering Acre 
because of the plague wliich, as he heard, was 
ravaging the city. On June 14 his letters are 
again dated from Cairo. His second stay in Egypt 
lasts two months, which were spent partly in hunt- 
ing the dctlironed chief of the Mamelukes, Murad 
Bey, partly in meeting a new Turkish army, which 
arrived in July in the Bay of Aboukir. He in- 
flicted on it an anniliilating defeat near its landing- 
place ; according to his own account nearly nine 
thousand persons were drowned. Tliis victory 
masked the final failure of the expedition. It 
was a failure such as would have given a serious 
blow to the reputation even of Bonaparte in a 
state enjoying publicity, where the responsibility 
could have been brought home to him and the 
facts could have been discussed. 

For a year of warfare, for the loss of the fleet, 
of 6,000 soldiers, and of several distinguished 
officers (Brueys, Caffarelli, Cretin), for disastrous 
defeats suffered in Europe, which might have been 



72 Total Failure of the Expedition, [a.d. 1799. 

averted by Bonaparte and his army, fur the loss 
for an indefinite time of the army itself, which 
could only return to France by permission of the 
English, there was nothing to show. No progress 
was made in conciliating the people. Bonaparte 
had arrived with an intention of appealing to the 
religious instinct of the Semitic races. He had 
imagined apparently that the rebellion of France 
against the Catholic Church might be represented 
to the Moslems as an adhesion to their faith. He 
had declared himself a Mussulman commissioned 
by the Most High to humble the Cross. At the 
same time he had hoped to conciliate the Sultan ; 
it had been arranged that Talleyrand should go to 
Constantinople for the purpose. But Talleyrand 
remained at Paris, the Sultan was not conciliated, 
the people were not deluded by Bonaparte's relig- 
ious appeals. Eebellion after rebellion had broken 
out, and had been repressed with savage cruelty. 
It was time for him to extricate himself from so 
miserable a business. 

It appears from the correspondence that he had 
promised to be back in France as early as October, 
1798, a fact which shows how completely all his 
calculations had been disappointed. Sir Sidney 
Smith now contrived that he should receive a 
packet of journals, by which he was informed of 



^TAT. 30.] Bonaparte Returns to Europe. 73 

all that had passed recently in Europe and of the 
disasters which France had suffered. His resolu- 
tion was immediately taken. On August 22 he 
wrote to Kleber announcing that he transferred to 
him the command of the expedition, and that he^ 
himself would return to Europe, taking with him 
Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Andreossi, Marmont, 
Monge, and Berthollet, and leaving orders that Ju- 
not should follow in October and Desaix in Novem- 
ber. After carefully spreading false accounts of his 
intentions, he set sail with two frigates in the night 
of the 22d. His voyage occupied more than six 
weeks, during which he revisited Corsica. On Oc- 
tober 9 he arrived in the harbor of Frejus. 

After his return the disastrous results of the ex- 
pedition continued to develop themselves. Egypt 
was reconquered l)y the English, and Malta passed 
into their hands. Thus a plan which had aimed 
at excluding England from the Mediterranean 
ended in establishing her power there and in 
excluding France. We shall see how far Napo- 
leon was ultimately led in the wild struggle to 
retrieve this failure. 

§ 5. Revolution of Brumaire. 

From this moment the tide of his fortune 
began to flow again. His reappearance seemed 



74 Failure of the Rcpuhlic. [a.d. 1799. 

providential, and Avas hailed with delight throngh- 
out France, where the Eepublicau Government was 
in the last stage of dissolution. Since Fructidor 
French policy had been systematically Avarlike. 
A great law of military service had been intro- 
duced by General Jourdan, which was the basis 
of the Napoleonic armies ; a series of violent 
aggressions in Switzerland and Central Italy had 
brought on a new European war. But this policy 
was evidently inconsistent w'ith the republican 
form of government established in 1795. A 
Directory of civilians were not qualified to con- 
duct a policy so systematically warlike. Hence 
the war of 1799 had been palpably mismanaged. 
The armies and the generals were tliere, but the 
presiding strategist and statesman was wanting. 
In Italy conquest had been pushed too far. Half 
the troops were locked up in fortresses, or occupied 
in suppressing rebellions ; hence Macdonald at 
the Trebbia and Joubert at Novi were defeated by 
Suwaroff, Mantua fell, and the work of Bonaparte 
in Italy was wellnigh undone. Government was 
shaken by these disasters. A kind of revolution 
took place in June. Four new members entered 
the Directory, of whom three — Gohier, Iioger- 
Ducos, and General Moulins — represented on the 
whole the revival of the Jacobinism of 1793, while 



^TAT. 30] A New Revolution. 75 

the fourth, Sicyes, the most important politician 
of this crisis, represented the desire for some new- 
constitutional experiment. The remedy which 
first suiTO'ested itself was to return to the warlike 
fury and terrorism of 1793. The Jacobin Club 
was revived, and held its sittings in the Salle 
du Manege. Many leading generals, especially 
Jourdan and Bernadotte, favored it. But 1793 
w-as not to be revived. Its passions had gone to 
sleep, and the memory of it was a nightmare. 
Nevertheless a sort of Terror began. The hard- 
ship of recruitment caused rebellions, particularly 
in the West. Chouannerie and royalism revived, 
and the odious Law of Hostages was passed to 
check them. After seven years of misery France 
in the autumn of 1799 was perhaps more miser- 
able than ever. 

If 1793 could not be revived, what alternative ? 
Siey^s perceived that what was needed was a 
supreme general to direct the war. But, though 
he had ceased to believe in popular institutions, 
and had become a convert to a new kind of aris- 
tocracy, he did not wish his supreme general to 
control civil affairs. He looked for an officer who 
should be intelligent without being too ambitious. 
His choice fell upon Joubert, who was accordingly 
nominated commander of the Army of Italy, that 



76 A Supreme General Wanted, [a.d. 1799. 

he might acquire the necessary renown. But 
Joiibert was killed at Xovi iu August. From this 
time Sieyes had remained uncertain. Advances 
were made in vain to Moreau. Who can say 
what might have happened in a few months ? 
Some general of abilities not very commanding 
would have risen to a position in which he would 
have controlled the fate of France. Perhaps 
Massena, whose reputation at this moment reached 
its highest point through the victories of Zurich, 
but who was not njade either for an emperor or 
for a statesman, might have come forward to play 
the part of Monk. 

Upon this perplexing gloom the reappearance 
of Bonaparte came like a tropical sunrise, too daz- 
zling for Sieyes himself, who wanted a general, 
but a general he could control. On October 16 
he arrived at his old Parisian house in tlie Eue 
de la Victoire, and on November 9 and 10 (Bru- 
maire 18, 19) the revolution took place. Bona- 
parte had some difficulty at first in understanding 
the position. He found a Jacobin party clamor- 
ing for strong measures and for a vigorous prosecu- 
tion of the war ; at the head of this party he saw 
military men, particularly Jourdan and Bernadotte. 
As an old Kobespierrist, a Fructidorian, and a sol- 
dier, he was at first attracted to this faction. Sieyes, 



^TAT. 30.] Bonaparte as an Anti-Jacobin. 77 

the object of their most bitter attacks, he was at 
first disposed to regard as his principal enemy. 
Gradually he came to perceive that tliis time he 
was to rise not as a Jacobin but as the soldier of 
anti-Jacobinism, aud that he must place his sword 
at the service of Sieyes. For his part Sieyes could 
not but perceive that Bonaparte was not precisely 
the war-minister ho sought. But by the efforts of 
Lucien and Joseph Bonaparte, of Eoederer, and 
Talleyrand, a coalition was at last effected between 
them, though Sieyes continued to predict that 
after the success Bonaparte would throw him over. 
The movement which now took place was the 
most respectable, the most hopeful, as for a long 
time it seemed the most successful, effort that had 
been made since 1792 to lift France out of the 
slough. Instead of reviving Jacobinism the pro- 
posal was to organize a strong and skilled Govern- 
ment. A grand party of respectability rallied 
round Sieyes to put down Jacobinism. Ducos 
among the Directors (he had been converted), the 
majority of the Council of Ancients, Moreau and 
Macdonald, the generals of purest reputation, Bon- 
aparte and the generals personally attached to 
him, composed this party. On the other side the 
Jacobinical party consisted of the Directors Goliier 
and Moulins, the majority of the Council of Five 



78 A Proposal of Reform. U.d. 1799. 

Hundred, Generals Jourdan and Beruadotte. 
Which party would be followed by the rank and 
file of the army, was an anxious question. 

It was determined to take advantage of a provi- 
sion of the constitution which had been originally 
inserted by the Girondists as a safeguard against 
aggressions from the municipality of Paris, and to 
cause the Council of Ancients to decree a meeting 
of the Councils outside Paris at the palace of St. 
Cloud. At this meeting it was intended to pro- 
pose a reform of the constitution. The proposal 
would be supported by a majority in the Council 
of Ancients, and by mauy, but probably not a 
majority, in the Council of Five Hundred. It was 
foreseen that the Jacobins might give trouble, and 
might need to be eliminated, as they had them- 
selves eliminated the Girondists. With a view to 
this, when the decree was passed on November 9, 
General Bonaparte, made commander of all the 
troops in Paris, was intrusted with the execution 
of it. It is carefully to be observed that he does 
not, like Cromwell, act of his own free will against 
the assembly, but is appointed by the assembly to 
act in its name. No one thought of destroying 
the republic ; the question was of introducing the 
famous perfect constitution of Sieyes. Bonaparte 
appeared, surrounded by the generals of his party. 



jETXT. 30.] Meeting of the Councils. 79 

in the Council of Ancients, where he skilfully 
evaded taking the oath to the constitution. He 
then reviewed the troops, and it became apparent 
that he could count on them. From this moment 
Brumaire may be said to have been decided. The 
next step was that Sieyes and Ducos resigned their 
places on the Directory ; Barras was induced to 
follow their example ; but Gohier and Moulins 
were firm. Gohier was placed under ward of 
Moreau at the Luxembourg, while Moulins made 
his escape. It now only remained to deal with 
the Council of Five Hundred, the stronghold of 
Jacobinism. 

The revolution was consummated on the next 
day at St. Cloud. Bonaparte and Sieyes sat in a 
private room while the Councils began their delib- 
erations ; but being informed that it was proposed 
to renew the oath to the existing constitution, 
Bonaparte determined to interfere. There seems 
to have been mismanagement here. Sieyes, not 
Bonaparte, should have interfered, but probably he 
was rendered helpless, as often happened to him, by 
timidity. Bonaparte then entered the Council of 
Ancients, where he delivered a confused harangue, 
wliich did him little good, though the assembly 
was well disposed to him. His position was 
a false one, though he urged very justly that 



80 Intervention of Lucien. [a.d. 1799. 

the existing constitution had been practically 
destro^^ed by the illegalities of Fructidor, Floreal, 
and Prairial. He then passed to the hostile Coun- 
cil of Five Hundred, where he was received with 
cries of ' Hors la loi ! ' 'A bas le dictateur ! ' 
He was seized by the collar, and attempts were 
made to pusli him out of the hall. 

He was now almost in despair, and no wonder ! 
I>y the backwardness of Sieyfes he had been pushed 
into the part of Cromwell. But Cromwell had 
soldiers devoted to liim, and of theocratic rather 
than republican ideas; the soldiers of l)onapnrte 
had only just been put under his command, and 
they were fanatical republicans. The false step 
must be retrieved. The soldiers must be per- 
suaded that Bonaparte was no Cromwell, but a 
stanch republican, and that they were not called 
upon to act against an assembly, but only against 
a traitorous minority, as at Fructidor. Lucien 
Bonaparte, who was president of the Five Hun- 
dred, perf(.)rmed this miracle. Bonaparte had sent 
grenadiers to rescue him. Lucien was at tlie tri- 
bune, where he was defending his brother amidst 
noisy interruption. At the appearance of the 
grenadiers lie threw off his official dress and re- 
tired under their escort. In the hall he mounted 
on liorseback and addressed the troops who were 



^TAT. .30.] Provisional Consuls. 81 

employed to guard tlie legislature, declaring that 
the council was oppressed by assassins, brigands 
paid by England; he charged the soldiers to 
deliver the majority from this oppression by clear- 
ing the hall. He brandished a sword and swore 
to stab his brother if ever he attacked the liber- 
ties of Frenchmen. On the clear understanding 
that no violence against the assembly was in- 
tended, and with the express sanction of its presi- 
dent, the soldiers then cleared the hall. In the 
evening at 9 o'clock Lucien reassembled a certain 
number of tlie members and proposed to them to 
nominate a committee which should report on the 
state of affliirs. This committee was at once 
named, and speedily presented a report to the 
effect that Sieyes, Eogcr-Ducos, and Bonaparte 
should compose a provisional executive under the 
title of consuls, that the legislature should adjourn 
till February 20 (1 Ventose), a committee of 
twenty-five members from each Council being left 
to deliberate along with tlie consuls upon the 
changes to be made in the constitution; at the 
same time, as in Fructidor, a certain number of 
members (fifty-five) were to be expelled from the 
Councils. 

Tlius the original plan was on the whole carried 
into effect. But it had been sadly marred by 
6 



82 Provisional Consuls. [a.d. 1799. 

the unseemly appearance of Bonaparte and by his 
gasconades, in which he bade the Council remem- 
ber that he ' marched under the escort of the god 
of fortune and the god of war.' An attempt was 
made to conceal these mistakes by publishing in 
the Moniteur a garbled report of his speech. 



^TAT. 30.] Scheme of Sleyhs. 83 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FIRST CONSUL. 
§ 1. Bonaparte becomes Fijst Consul. 

Brumaire taken by itself is the victory of Siey^s 
rather than of Bonaparte. It raised Sieyes to the 
position he had so long coveted of legislator for 
France. The constitution now introduced was 
really in great part his work, but his work so sig- 
nally altered in one point that it resulted in the 
absolute supremacy of Bonaparte. We should es- 
pecially notice that it is Sieyes, not Bonaparte, who 
practically suppresses representative institutions. 
The long-expected scheme of Sieyes was at last 
promulgated, and we see with astonishment that 
the man of 1789, the author of 'Qu'est-ce que le 
Tiers-Etat?' himself condemns political liberty. 
In this scheme the assemblies, of which there are 
three, the Senate, the Tribunate, and the Corps 
Legislatif, are not chosen by popular election at 
all. The two latter are nominated by the Senate, 
and the Senate is chosen at the outset in part by 



84 Slci/h Dcsfrni/s Libert ij. [ad. 1799. 

the provisional consuls and in part by co-optation. 
The Tribunate alone has the ri«;lit of public debate, 
which is separated from the right of voting. This 
latter is assigned to the Corps L(^gislatif. These 
arrangements, Avhich caused the nullity of parlia- 
mentary institutions in the Napoleonic period, 
were devisetl not by Bonaparte but by Sieycs, who 
confined popular election to certain lists of notabil- 
ity, out of which the assemblies were required to 
be chosen. By this sclieme Sieyes, who retained 
all his liatred for the old regime and the old no- 
hlcssc, passed sentence upon the M'hole constructive 
work of the Eevolutiun ; this sentence was but rat- 
ified by Bonaparte. 

But, while he absolutely condemned democracy, 
Sieyes did not want to set up despotism. The 
Senate was to be supreme ; it was to be a kind of 
hereditary aristocracy, the depositary of the tradi- 
tion of the Bevolution ; above it, and capable of 
being deposed by it, was to be a doge called Grand 
Elector, whose main function would consist in 
choosing two consuls, of whom one was to take the 
home and the other the foreign department. Here 
again Inniaparte acquiesced as far as he could. He 
adopted the consuls and the triple executive, even 
lowering apparently the Grand Elector of Sieyes 
by giving him the more republican title of First 



^TAT. 30.] Bonaparte creates a Monarchy. 85 

Consul. But he displayed signally the adroitness, 
rapid and audacious, which was always the char- 
acteristic of his diplomacy. He declaimed vio- 
lently against the feebleness of the Grand Elector 
and tlie Consuls in this scheme, feigning to over- 
look that it concentrated power intentionally in 
the Senate; then, instead of sending back the 
scheme for revision, he simply strengthened im- 
mensely the attributions of the First Consul, leav- 
ing the other consuls and the assemblies as weak 
as before. By this stroke a strong aristocracy was 
turned into a strong monarchy ; at the same time 
advantage was taken of the very peculiar character 
of Sieyes, who always when he met with opposition 
sank into an impenetrable silence. Bonaparte 
boasted afterwards that he had sealed his victory 
over Sieyes by a handsome bribe at the expense of 
the public. 

Perhaps, however, in his controversy with Sieyes 
Bonaparte had public opinion on his side. Not 
only were the arrangements he attacked really 
absurd, but he might just at that moment plead 
for a strong government without being instantly 
found guilty of ambition. The conviction of the 
time was that a strong and stable executive was 
needed, and that this must not be many-headed ; 
moreover the discovery had recently been made in 



86 Bonaparte First Consul. [a.d. 1799. 

America that a Eepublic must have a President, 
and also that such a President might be without 
ambition. 

The^ provisional consulate of Sieyes, Ducos, and 
Bonaparte lasted only from November 10 to Decem- 
ber 13. Then through the promulgation of the 
new constitution it made way for the definitive 
consulate of Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Lebrun, 
which lasted four years. By the constitution of 22 
Frimaire, year VIII. (which was never debated in 
any assembly, but, after being devised by the two 
legislative committees meeting at the Luxembourg 
under the presidency of Bonaparte, and in the pres- 
ence of the other consuls, and after being redacted 
by Daunou, was introduced by a popular vote), 
Bonaparte became First Consul for ten years with 
a salary of half a million francs, with a sole power 
of nominating the council of state, the ministers, 
ambassadors, officers of army and fleet, and most of 
the judges and local officials, and with a power, 
in nominal conjunction with the other consuls, of 
initiating all legislation and deciding war and 
peace. Sieyes and Ducos retired, and under the 
new constitution the second and third consuls were 
Cambaceres, an eminent legist, and Lebrun, an old 
official of Louis XV.'s time. The party of Bru- 
maire had intended to set up a republic, but this 



,T.TAT. 30] Religious Tolerance. 87 

coustitutiou creaied_a^roug_monarchjjinder the 
thinnest disguise. 

For the moment it was much that France re- 
nounced Jacobinism and ceased to tear herself 
to jiieces. The civil war of the West and the 
foreign war were alike energetically taken in hand. 
A proclamation to the inhabitants of the West 
(December 28) breathed for the first time the 
spirit of tolerance, of respect for religion, and con- 
sideration for the clergy. It was a precursor of the 
Concordat, and attacked the civil war at its root. 
It was accompanied by the most imperious threats 
against the refractory, who are to be treated ' like 
the Arabs of the desert,' who are warned that they 
have to do with a man ' accustomed to riGjorous 
and energetic measures ' — an allusion apparently 
to the massacres of Jaffa and Cairo. This policy, 
accompanied by decisive military action, was speed- 
ily successful. By the end of February all was 
quiet in the West ; Frottd, the most active leader 
in ISTormandy, had surrendered at discretion, and 
had been shot, tliougli Bonaparte had expressly an- 
nounced that if he surrendered he might count on 
the generosity of the Government. In preaching 
a religious peace at home Bonaparte was sincere ; 
he was less so in announcing a policy of peace in 
Europe, for he well knew that he needed a victory 



88 Overtures of Peace. [a.d. 1799. 

to cover his apostasy. Nevertheless the announce- 
ment was necessary as part of the national renun- 
ciation of Jacobinism ; and it was harmless, for 
the Coalition was scarcely likely to accept peace 
when they had the military advantage. Indeed they 
could not consistently do so, since they had gone 
to war on the ground that peace with the Direc- 
tory had appeared in 1798 to be less endurable 
than war, and the accession of Bonaparte could not 
but seem to them likely to make matters worse. 
In thinking thus they were substantially right, as 
the sequel proved, but they did not sufficiently 
understand that Bonaparte was not now the ' cham- 
pion of Jacobinism,' as Pitt called him, but had 
become its enemy and destroyer. When England \ 
and Austria refused his overtures, Bonaparte had 
the satisfaction of getting precisely what he 
wanted — viz. war — in precisely the way he 
wished, that is, as apparently forced upon him. 

§ 2. His Jealousy of Moreau. — Campaign of Marengo. 
— Treaty of Lxmeville. — The Concordat. — T'reaty 
of Amiens. 

The campaign of 1800 is peculiar in the circum- 
stance that throughout its course Bonaparte has a 
military rival with whom he is afraid to break, 
and who keeps pace with him in achievements — 



^TAT. 30.] Plan of the Campaign. 89 

Moreau. To Moreau the success of Brumaire bad 
been mainly due, and be bad perhaps thought that 
the new constitution, as it did not seem to con- 
template the First Consul commanding an army, 
had removed Bonaparte from the path of bis am- 
bitioiL He now held the command of the principal 
army, that of the Rhine, in which post Bonaparte 
could not venture to supersede him. The problem 
for Bonaparte throughout the war was to prevent 
^loreau, and in a less degree IMassena, who was 
now in command of the Army of Italy, from eclips- 
ing his own military reputation. Eussia bad now 
retired from the Coalition, so that, as in 1796, 
Austria and England were the only belligerents. 
Italy bad been almost entirely lost, and Massena, 
at the head of the Army of Italy, opposed to Gen- 
eral ]\Ielas, was almost where Bonaparte had been 
before his Italian campaign began. But France had 
retained the control of Switzerland, and Moreau, 
with more than 100,000 men arranged along the 
Ehine from the Lake of Constance to Alsace, stood 
opposed to ,Kray, whose bead-quarters were at 
Donaueschingen. It seemed that the campaign 
would be conducted by Moreau and Massena re- 
ceiving instructions from Bonaparte at Paris. That 
the decisive campaign would have been in Bavaria, 
seems so evident that the militarv writer Biilow 



90 Army of Reserve. [a.d. isoo. 

conjectures that the French were afraid of alarm- 
ing Europe by a too decisive victory, which would 
have brought them at once to the walls of Vienna, 
and that they therefore transferred the campaign to 
Italy. But Bonaparte would have sunk into a 
President had Moreau won Hohenlinden in the 
spring of 1800, M'hile he remained ingloriously at 
Paris. While therefore in writing to Moreau he 
carefully adopts the language of one who, much 
to his own regret, has become a mere civilian, he 
plans the campaign so that both ]\Ioreau and Mas- 
s^na are confined to the task of holding the enemy 
in play, while an army of reserve descends from 
one of the Alpine passes into Italy. This army of 
reserve, wliich was so carefully concealed that few 
people believed in its existence, is to be com- 
manded, he writes, by some general ' to be named 
by the consuls ; ' a little later Berthier is nominated. 
As late as the end of ]\Iarch he told Miot that he 
did not mean to leave Paris. Moreau is also to 
detach 25,000 men under Lecourbe, who are to 
join Berthier in Italy; in this way security was 
taken that Moreau sliould not be too successful. 
On April 24 the campaign in Germany began by 
the passage of the Rhine at a number of jDoints 
at once. Up to May 10 Moreau is the hero of the 
war. He is victorious at Engen, at Mosskirchen, 



^TAT. 30.] Passage of the Aljis. 91 

and forces Kray to retire to Ulra. By those suc- 
cesses Switzerland is kept clear for the operations 
of Bonaparte. On May 9 Bonaparte is at Geneva, 
and it appears at once that he is commander, and 
Berthier only his chief of the staff. At the same 
time Carnot in person is sent with nnusual for- 
mality to demand from Moreau the detachment of 
troops. 

The campaign of Marengo was astonishingly 
short. On jMay 11 Bonaparte left Geneva, and 
he is in Paris again early in July. Since the 
beginning of A^jril Masseua had been struggling 
vainly against the superior forces of Melas. Since 
the 21st he had been shut up in Genoa, where 
Austria and England could co-operate in the siege. 
In Italy the affairs of France looked darker than 
ever, when Bonaparte threw himself on the rear 
of Melas by passing the Great St. Bernard between 
May 15 and 20. Other divisions passed the Little 
St. Bernard and the Mont Cenis, while the de- 
tachment from Moreau's array (under Moncey, 
not Lecourbe) descended the St. Gotthard. It 
seems that the Austrians had absolutely refused 
to believe, what nevertheless was openly discussed 
in the Paris journals, that Bonnparte intended to 
cross the Alps. Bonaparte had another surprise 
in store for them. Though Genoa was now 



02 ]\I<tir)i(}(). [a. I). 1800. 

suflorinL;' all llui Ikiitovs of fainiiio, ho made no aL- 
t(MU])|. l-o rt'lii'V(> it, but tunii'd to the left, eiitt'red 
IMiiaii on .liiiu' 2, and took ])o.ssessioii of tlieMhdle 
lino ol' tlie Ticiiio and ilw. Vo. Meanwhile Genoa 
capitulaLeil to (ieneral Olt. Mela.s was now at 
Alessandria, \vheri> I'onaparte son^t^lit him on the 
liUli. On the 1 !lh i\h'las marched out, erossi'd 
tlit> r.oi'mida, anil arri\eil at Marengo. He found 
the .l''reneh \vi(U>ly dispersed, and I'airly defeated 
them. He had himself retired from the Held, and 
his solditMs M'ere iilundcrin'.;- llie dead, whiai the 
arrival df Desai.x'.s divisiiui i:;ave lionaparto a 
<j,l('ani of htipe. Desaix himself fell, but a sud- 
den elan;;'e of ea\;dry, headed hy Ki'Uermann, ])ro- 
dui'i'il anion;.'; the Austiians a ]>anie similar to that 
whieh had been witnivsseil at Kivoli. A i^vaxl 
Austrian vietovy was turiunl into u deeisive Aus- 
trian tlefeat.. Pionapavte was raised from the brink 
. of absiilule ii;noniiiii(iiis ruin to the very ]nunaclo 
of ij;lory. On the next day ]\lidas (havin*^', as it 
seems ipiite lost his head) signed a convention by 
which .Vustria saerilieed ahuost all North Italy, 
restoring- something' like the |)osition o[' Oami)0 
l'\)rmio. 'Ihul he fi>u;4ht another battle,' says 
^larmont, ' he would certainly have beaten us.' 
{'.ouajiarte returns to Paris, victorious at once ovm- 
Austria and over j\Ioreau and Massi^nti. He did 



*TAT. 31.] licsulls of Marcnyo. 93 

not, liovvever, succeed in tearing from Moreau the 
honor of concluding the war. Marengo did not 
lead to peace ; this was won, where naturally it 
could only hu won, in Tiavaria l)y JVloreau'.s victory 
of llohenlinden (December 3), a victory perhaps 
greater than any of which at that time Bonaparte 
could boast. 

This, eampaigiL. j3 tjie. .culmination and close of 
what may be called the J5onaparte period, the 
period of war on a comparatively small scale and . ^ 
of victories won with small means. It exagger-^^^,.,. *' 
ates all the characteristics of TJonapartc's method 
— s tartling originality, cunning, and audacity. 
Genius is prodigally displayed, and yet an im- 
mense margin is left for fortune. Marengo may 
be called his crowning victory. The position 
given him by the new constitution had hitherto 
been most precarious. Sieyc^'s and the republicans 
were on the watch for him on the one side; Mo- 
reau seemed on the point of eclipsing him on the 
other. His family felt tluiir critical position: ' had 
he fallen at Marengo,' writes Lucien, ' we should 
have been all proscribed.' Perhaps nothing but a 
stroke so rapid and startling as tluit of Marengo 
could have saved him from these dilliculties. 
But this did more, and developed the empire 
out of the consulate. 



94 Treaty of LunMlle. [a.d. isoi. 

His appeal for peace after Brumaire had not 

been purely insincere, though he wanted victory 
before peace. He proposes to Rouget de 1' Isle to 
write ' a battle hymn which shall express the idea 
that with great nations peace comes after victory.' 
After Marengo he devotes himself to giving peace 
to the world ; he did this by three great acts, so 
that in 1802 for the first time for ten years under 
the new Augustus ' no war or battle sound was 
heard the world around.' These three acts are the 
treaty of Lun^ville, February, 1801, the Concordat, 
July, 1801, the treaty of Amiens, March, 1802. 
It is worth noticing that the negotiator of all of 
them is his brother Joseph, as if he especially de- 
sired to connect his family name with the pacifi- 
\ cation of the world. 

1. The treaty of Lun^ville gave peace to the 
Continent. Austria is now disarmed, not merely 
by defeat, but still more by the defection of llussia 
to the side of France. It is to be observed that 
here Bonaparte shows himself at least less rapa- 
cious than the Directory. He surrenders most of 
the usurpations of 1798, the Eoman and Parthe- 
nopean republics, and returns in tlie main to the 
arrangements of Campo Formio — a proof of mod- 
eration which must have led the cabinets to con- 
sider whether after all it might not be possible to 



^TAT. 32.] The Concordat. 95 

find a modus vivcndi with the Government of Bru- 
niaire. 

2. By the Concordat he professed to close the 
religious war. In reality he crushed the national 
Galilean Church, which had been created by the 
Constitution Civile, and wliich had perhaps begun 
to take root, and restored the Papal Church, shorn 
of its endowments and dependent, so long as he 
lived, on the state. As part of the great pacifica- 
tion, the Concordat was perliaps mainly a stroke 
of stage effect, though its influence upon the later 
history of France has been great. For Bonaparte 
himself it was important as severing the clerical 
party from the Bourbons and attaching it to him- 
self, as giving him through the clergy an influence 
over the peasantry, upon whom he depended for 
his armies, also as in some degree welding together 
through the ubiquitous influence of the clergy the 
different states which were already subject to his 
government. In negotiating it with Cardinal Con- 
salvi, Bonaparte had recourse more tlian once to 
the_^Yulgar frauds and knavery which earned for 

\^im_the_title_of^ Jupiter-Scapiji. 

3. It remained to make peace with England, but 
here the condition of peace, victory, was still want- 
ing. For a moment, however, it seemed within 
reach, for the Czar had gone over to France, and 



96 Treaty of Amiens. (a.d. isoi. 

had become bitterly liostile to Euglaiul. This 
opened quite a new prospect. It enabled Bona- 
parte to revive against England tlie Armed Neu- 
trality of 1780. Not onl}^ Jiussia but Prussia was 
thus brouglit for the first time, along with Sweden 
and Denmark, into the French alliance, and the 
system of Tilsit was sketched out. But this 
phase lasted only till April. The bombardment 
of Copenhagen by Nelson dissolved the combina- 
tion, and the murder of Paul, followed by a recon- 
ciliation between Eussia and England, compelled 
Bonaparte to lower his pretensions. In the sum- 
mer his endeavors are confined to saving the French 
colony in Egypt from the English, and to snatching 
a little territory from England's ally Portugal by 
means of Spain. But Cairo capitulated to the 
English in June, in which month also Spain made 
peace Avith Portugal. Bonaparte was at last com- 
pelled to admit in this instance the idea of a peace 
Mdiich should not come after victory. Accordingly, 
in October, the preliminaries of London were 
signed, and the treaty of Amiens followed in 
March. The allies of France paid for her naval 
defeats, Spain losing Trinidad and Holland Cey- 
lon ; but France, though she lost nothing, acqui- 
esced by this treaty in the total failure of all her 
designs upon the East. 



^TAT. 32.] Universal Peace. 



§ 3. Reconstrnclion of French Institutions. — Gradual 
Progress towards Monarchy. — Plot of Nivose. 

The gjobe was now at peace, and thanked Bona- 
parte for it. The eq^uilibrium which had been 
destroyed by the Eevolution seemed at length to 
be restored. Meanwhile the legislative reconstruc- 
tion of France proceeded rapidly. This is the 
glorious period of Bonaparte's life, not, as has 
often been alleged, because he was as yet uncor- 
rupted by power, but simply because a strong 
intelligent Government was the great need of 
France and repose the great need of Europe, and 
Bonaparte at this time satisfied both needs. Tlie 
work of reconstruction which distinguishes the 
consulate, though it was continued under the em- 
pire, is the most enduring of all the achievements 
of Napoleon. The institutions of modern France 
date, not, as is often said, from tlie Eevolution, 
but from the Consulate. Not tliat Napoleon per- 
sonally was endowed with a supreme legislative 
genius; his principal merit was to have given to 
France the first secure Government, the first Gov- 
ernment capable of effective legislation, that she 
had had since the destruction of her ancient insti- 
tutions. ' The task of reconstruction fell to him of 
necessity ; his personal interference was in many 
7 



{' 



DS Xapoh'oiiic lih'idliitioiis. [\.v. isoi. 

ivsjHH'ts. !us wo shall soo, inisrhii'vous vatliov tliaii 
luMU'lirial ; it is, lii>\vi'vtM-, als*) [vnc that lu> apjMi*- 
riatoil (ho ^Toatnoss o[' tho work. ur;:i\l il on with 
vigtu', ouliMTvl into it. imprrssiHl il with tlio stauij) 
o\' his own ]HM-svMiality. ami lot't 11^011 it tlu> tnioos 
of his Uoon sngaoit y. 

Tho iiistitutiiMis iu>w ovoatovl. and whirh ionu 
tho ovgaiii.-ation of nioilovn IVaiuo. avo — (^O (ho 
I'ostoivd Churoh. ivstiiiLj mi [he Co\wo\\h\[ ; {'2) tho 
rnivoiNity, vos(in;,' on (ho law of 11 Moroal. An 
X. yMay I, 1v'>0L"i; i^,"^"! (ho juitioial svstoui. roni- 
niotuoil by thi^ law o[' "JT ^'ontoso, An \II1. 
(Maivh IS. ISiH^\ ami omnj^loloil by othor laws 
in Iv^lO ; ^^Otho C\h1os : — {^,1) (.\hIo Civil ^ooni- 
inissiou noniinatod LM rhonniilor. An \lll, 
August lL\ ISOl); i( ivooivod (ho nanio (.\h1o 
NaiH>loon on Soi>(onilvr o. 1S07\ \^l>) Codo do 
ConunoiYO i^in-onuil!4;v(od on SoptiMulvv \0. lSl^7\ 
{c) Code IVnal, t^d^ Code il" Inst motion rriniinoUo 
^^oanio into t'oivo January 1. ISl H ; i^o^i tho systoni 
of looal ^ovornnuMU. vosting iUi tho law vif IS 
riuvioso. An \lll. (^Kobvuary 7. ISOO^; ^^t^^ tho 
r>ank of I'ranoo. os(ablishod "JS Nivoso. An \ 111. 
I^.lanuavy IS. ISiH^^ ; (^7'> tho l.ogion of Honor, 
ostablishod '29 Kloroal. An X. (^May \\\ 1S02). 
Thoso insti(u(ions. alon^:: wi(h tho military systom, 
havo in (ho main oon(inuod (o (lio prosoiU day af(or 



jE.TAT.:i2.\ liesults of lieconHlruclion. 09 

the downfiill of fill lh<; Napoleonic iiiHUtuliorifj 
wliicli were purely political. It \h rather the 
fortune th.ui the merit of Napoleon that no uim- 
iiar ni.i).') of ](;giHlation can he uscribeiJ to any 
other Hovereij^n, Hinco no other Kfjvereign has ruled 
Hecurely over an ancient and f;ivilized country 
which has l^een Hudderjly d<;|)rivcd of all its innti- 
tution.s. \ It '\H aJHO a matter of couine that much 
of tliis IcgiHlatimi lias been beneficial, HJnco a 
tuhula ram relieves the lej,'i.slator of many liin- 
dranccB. In .several points, on the othf;r hand, we 
can see that J'Vance was Hacrific(;d to Najjoleon'a 
personal interest. Thus the Concordat restored 
the ancient I'apal Church, shorn of its wealth, 
and receiviii;.^ from the state a suixiidy of !d>ont 
£2,000,000. It was ri;^ht to restore reli;,don, and 
the Constitution Civile, which was cancelled by 
the Concordat, had becm an insane act, tlie prin- 
cipal caiise f>f tJie nn'.serjes of France \<)r ten 
years. Neverthel<;ss a grf;at opj^ortunity was lost 
of tryin;^ some new experiment, whirdi mi^ht have 
led to a genuine revival of reli;,'ion ; Ijut for tijis 
Napoleon cared nothing so long hs he could pose 
as a new Constantine, detach the Church from tlie 
cause of the liourfxms, and havf; the Pope at his 
beck. In like manner the freedom of local gov- 
ernment wa.s sacrificed to tlie exigencies of iiis 



100 The University of France. [a.h. 1802. 

despotism. Among the most remarkable of his 
institutions was the University. The twenty-one 
universities of old France, including the great 
mother university of Paris, had fallen in the 
Eevolution along witli the Church ; nothing of 
the least efficiency had been established in their 
place, so that in March, 1800, Lucien Bonaparte 
could write, ' Since the suppression of the teach- 
ing corporations instruction has almost ceased to 
exist in France.' By laws of May, 180G, and 
March, 1808, was founded the modern University — 
that is, the whole teaching profession formed into 
a corporation and endowed by the state, a kind of 
church of education. This remarkable institution 
still exists. It has far too much centralization, 
and is in no way equal to the old system when that is 
intelligently worked, as in Germany ; many learned 
men have severely condemned it ; still it was an 
im[)ortant constructive effort, and gave Napoleon 
the occasion for some striking and original remarks. 
From the time of the battle of Marengo the 
system of Brumaire began to take a development 
Avhich perhaps had not been clearly foreseen. 
Sieyes had wished to confine Bonaparte to the War 
Department, Morcau perhaps had wished to keep 
him at Paris; in either case it had not been in- 
tended to create an august monarchy. But the 



/ETAT. 3:^.] Revival of Monarchy. 101 

fabulous success of Marengo, joined to the proofs 
Bonaparte gave of a really superior intelligence 
and commanding character, turned the French 
mind back into that monarchical groove in vv^hich 
it had so long run before the Revolution. Popular 
liberty had been already renounced by Sieyes, and 
the disastrous failure of republican institutions, 
which in four years, from 1795 to 1799, had 
brought the country to bankruptcy, civil war, and 
almost barbarism, inclined all public men to agree 
with him. The choice then could only lie between 
some form of aristocracy and the revival of mon- 
archy either in the Bourbon family or in another. 
Napoleon's personal character decided this ques- 
tion. By the Concordat he wrested from the Bour» 
bons the support of the Church ; by his military 
glory he seduced the noblesse, as is seen in the case 
of Segur ; by the pacification of the world he half 
reconciled to liimself the foreign cabinets. But 
no sooner did this new form of monarchy begin to 
appear than Bonaparte found himself surrounded 
by new dangers. He was exposed to the hatred 
of the republicans, who had hitherto been appeased 
by the title of consul, and were now thrown into 
coalition with the defeated Jacobins, and also to 
the despair of the royalists, who saw themselves 
disappointed of restoration at the moment of the 



102 Claims of the ^ Family .' [a.d. 1803. 

failure of republicanism. Nearer his person at the 
same time court parties began to spring up. His 
brothers and sisters with Corsican shamelessness 
began to claim their share in the spoils. While 
he doubted what form his monarchy should take, 
and whether some character greater and more 
unique than that of a hereditary king could not be 
invented, they urged the claims of the family. 
Thus arose a standing feud between the Bonapartes 
and the Beauharnais, who in the interest of Joseph- 
ine, already dreading divorce for her childlessness, 
opposed the principle of heredity. 

In grappling with the defeated parties Bonaparte 
found a great advantage in his position. The con- 
stitution of Brumaire itself gave him great powers ; 
popular institutions had been destroyed, not by 
him, but by the nation itself, which was weary of 
them ; under the Directory the public had grown 
accustomed to the suppression of journals and to 
periodic coups d itat of the most savage violence. 
Bonaparte therefore could establish a rigorous des- 
potism under the forms of a consular republic, 
mutilate the assemblies, and silence public opinion, 
he could venture occasionally upon acts of the 
most sweeping tyranny, without shocking a peo- 
ple which had so lately seen Fructidor, not to say 
the Reign of Terror, and had been accustomed to 



iETAT. .33.| Jacobinism Eradicated. 103 

call them liberty. The conspiracies began imme- 
diately after the return from Marengo, when the 
Corsicans Arena and Ceracchi, guilty apparently 
of little more than wild talk, were arrested in Oc- 
tober, 1800, at the Thiiutre Franqais. But on 
December 24 of the same year, as he drove with 
Josephine to the opera, a sudden explosion took 
place in the Kue Saint-Nicaise, which killed and 
wounded several people and damaged about fifty 
houses ; the carriage of Bonaparte escaped. He 
was still in the first fervor of his conversion from 
Jacobinism, and had not yet become alive to the 
danger which threatened him from royalisra. He 
could therefore see nothing but Jacobinism in this 
plot, and proposed to meet the danger by some 
general measure calculated to eradicate what re- 
mained of the Jaco])in party. But before such a 
measure could be taken Fouchd convinced him that 
he had been in error, and that he was in the pres- 
ence of a new enemy, royalism roused into new 
vigor by the recent change in public opinion. 
Upon this Bonaparte acted most characteristically. 
By a singular stretch of Machiavelism he made 
use of the mistake into which he had himself led 
the public to crush the enemy which for the mo- 
ment he feared most. He arrested and transported 
one hundred and thirty persons, whom he knew to 



104 Nivose. [a.d. isos. 

be innocent of the plot, on the general ground of 
Jacobinism, substituting for all legal trial a reso- 
lution passed by the servile Senate to the effect 
that ' the measure was conservative of the consti- 
tution.' This is Nivose, an act as enormous as 
Fructidor, and with a perfidy of its own. 

Making use of victory was almost more Bona- 
parte's talent than winning it. These plots, so far 
from impeding his ascent to monarchy, were con- 
verted by him into steps upon which he mounted. 
He drew from them an argument for heredity, 
which, in case he should himself fall, would furnish 
a successor. It had already been argued in the 
' Parallele entre Cesar, Cromwell, et Bonaparte ' 
(October, 1800) that lieredity only could prevent 
the nation from falling again under the domination 
of the assemblies, under the yoke of the S (not 
Sieyes surel}^ but Soldats) or under that of the 
Bourbons. He also made the plot of Nivose the 
occasion of a constitutional innovation. The as- 
semblies devised by Sieyes had hitherto been 
simply useless, so much idle machinery. But in 
Nivose the precedent was set of giving the Senate 
a constituent power. To guard tlie constitution 
was its nominal function ; this was now converted 
into a function of sanctioning alterations in the 
constitution, since every innovation became legal 



^TAT. 33.] Consul for Life. 105 

when the Senate declared it to be conservative of 
the constitution. In the hands of Bonaparte such 
a principle soon became fruitful enough. 

The first open step towards monarchy was made 
at the conclusion of the treaty of Amiens. As 
pacificator of the globe it was declared in the tri- 
bunate that Bonaparte deserved some mark of 
public gratitude. Upon this the Senate proposed 
to re-elect him First Consul for a further term of 
ten years. Bonaparte, disappointed, declared that 
he could only owe a prorogation of his magistracy 
to the people; to them, therefore, the question 
was referred, but in the form, Shall Napoleon Bo- 
naparte be elected consul for life ? and in this form 
it was adopted. 

§ 4. Rupture with England. — Execution of the Due 
d ^Enghien. — The Emperor Napoleon. — Trial of 
Moreau. 

In 1803 it might be perceived that the French 
Eevolution was over; Jacobinism was dead, the 
Church was restored, and it was plain that Bona- 
parte did not mean to be the first president of a 
republic, but^ the restorer of .monarchy. The new 
monarchy was seen to be similar to the old, but 
considerably more imperious. France is covered 
with an army of functionaries, servilely dependent 



106 JRivalrj/ of England and France, [a.p. isos. 

ou the Oovornmont ; a strange silence has settled 
on the conutry which under the old rt^ginie had 
been noisy with the debate — if for the most part 
fruitless debate — of i>avHaments and estates. 
Europe might hope that, the volcano being ex- 
hausted, she would heuceforth be free from war. 
With Jacobinism the source of discord was re- 
moved. All depended on Bonaparte himself, who 
might be supposed to be satiated with military 
glory, and to have enough to occupy him in the 
recoustitution of Prench Government and society. 

Alas ! the new age, as it detlned itself in ISOo, 
proved even more terribly warlike than the age of 
unexampled discord which had just closed. 

France, indeed, had been left most dangerously 
strong, and yet it was not simply lust of conquest 
in Bonaparte that now darkened the face of aftairs, 
it was the rivalry of England and France breaking- 
out more liercely than at any earlier epoch. The 
crisis was such as to give this old rivalry a sharper 
edge than ever. It was unendurable for Bona- 
parte in his glory to submit to the total failure of 
his Egyptian scheme; on the other hand, England 
was obliged, considering the immense and threaten- 
ing ascendency of France in Europe, to cling 
convulsively to every advantage she had gained. 
Everything turned ou IMulta, that all-important 



jET\r. 3'5.] Rupture of the Peace of Amiens. 107 

position, wliich England iniglit have surrendered 
to some neutral occupancy had Bonaparte been 
less powerful and dangerous ; and yet it was gall 
and wormwood to Bonaparte to imagine his dar- 
ling conquest remaining in English hands. He 
had rather, he said, see the English in the Fau- 
bourg St. Antoine than in Malta. This rupture^ 
between England and France is the beginning 
of the Napoleonic age, and determines its whole 
character. 

It is somewhat difficult to understand, because 
in the eleven years of the war with England Bona- 
parte was never able to strike a single blow at his 
enemy, and because at the outset he candidly con- 
fessed to Lord Whitworth that he did not see what 
means he had of injuring England. Why did 
Bonaparte engage in a war in which he was con- 
demned to be so purely passive ? We are perhaps 
to suppose that his confidence in the favor of 
fortune had been vastly increased by his recent 
successes, particularly by Marengo, and that though 
to Lord Whitworth he spoke of the invasion of 
England as almost impossible, yet in reality he 
expected to achieve that impossibility, as he had 
achieved so many others. He had also in mind 
the indirect methods Mliicli lie afterwards em- 
ployed; he would use, if necessary, the fleets of 



lOS ' Des Bagatelles.' [a.d. 1803. 

other Powers, he woukl resort to the coinincrcial 
blockade ; in one way or another he felt certain of 
success. That he was really hent upon forcing a 
war ap]iears from his allowing Sebastiani's report 
of his mission in tlie Etist, full of hints of the 
intention of France to reoccnpy Egypt at the first 
opportunity, to apjiear in the Monitcur. This re- 
port, besides oflending England, caused her to 
keep resolute possession of Malta, and, wlien 
Bonaparte appealed to the treaty of Amiens, Eng- 
land reidied by j^ointing to the now annexations 
of France, whicli had just divided Piedmont into 
departments. ' Co sont des bagatelles,' Lord "Wliit- 
M'orth rc})orts ]>onaparte to have answered, but 
ho adtls in a parenthesis which has never been 
printed, ' The expression he made use of was too 
trivial and vulgar to find a place in a despatch, or 
anywhere but in the mouth of a hackney coach- 
man ! ' 

The rupture took place with extraordinary marks 
of irritation on the jiart of Bonaparte. He de- 
tained tlie English residents in France, he declared 
that lie would hear of no neutrality, and indeed 
the continental wars which followed, in the course 
of which the Napoleonic Empire was founded, had 
their origin mainly in this quarrel. It might 
perhaps have been expected that he would try to 



^TAT. 34.] Seizure of Hanover, 109 

conciliate the continental Powers until he should 
have settled accounts with England. But he 
thought himself able to summon them to his side 
and to make them enemies of England against 
their will. Indeed since Luncville he felt himself 
the master of Germany. By that settlement Aus- 
tria had lost her power within the empire, and the 
minor German princes now looked up to Is'apoleon, 
for Napoleon dispensed the mass of property, the 
plunder of bishoprics and townships, which had 
been decreed as indenmity to the princes dispos- 
sessed on the left bank of the Khine. Hence he 
does not hesitate after the rupture with England 
to take up a position in the heart of Germany by 
seizing Hanover. 

All this was done while Bonaparte was still 
nominally only consul in the French licpublic. But 
the rupture with England furnished him with the 
occasion of throwing off the last disguise and 
openly restoring monarchy. It was a step which 
required all his audacity and cunning. He had 
crushed Jacobinism, but two great parties re- 
mained. There was first the more moderate repub- 
licanism, which might be called Girondism, and 
was widely spread among all classes and par- 
ticularly in the army. Secondly, there was the 
old royal ism, which after many years of helpless 



110 GironcUsm and Old Royalism. [a.d. 1803. 

weakness had revived since Brumaire. These two 
parties, though hostile to each other, were forced 
into a sort of alliance by the new attitude of Bona- 
parte, who was hurrying France at once into a 
new revolution at home and into an abyss of war 
abroad. England too, after the rupture, favored 
the efforts of these parties. Eoyalism from Eng- 
land began to open communications with moderate 
republicanism in France. Pichegru acted for the 
former, and the great representative of the latter 
was Moreau, who had helped to make Brumaire 
in the tacit expectation probably of rising to the 
consulate in due course when Bonaparte's term 
should have expired, and was therefore hurt in 
his personal claims as well as in his republican 
principles. Bonaparte watched the movement 
through his ubiquitous police, and with character- 
istic strategy determined not merely to defeat it 
but to make it liis stepping-stone to monarchy. 
He would ruin Moreau by flistening on him the 
stigma of royalism ; he would persuade France to 
make him emperor in order to keep out the Bour- 
bons. !g e a cbi£vedjtliis with the peculiar mastery 
which he always showed in villanous intrigue. 
Moreau had in 1797 incurred blame by concealing 
his knowledge of Pichegru's dealings with the 
royalists. That he should now meet and hold 



iETAT. 34.J Moreaii and Pichegru. Ill 

conversation with Pichegru at a moment when 
Pichegru was engaged in contriving a royalist re- 
bellion, associated his name still more closely with 
royalism, and Pichegru brought with him wilder 
partisans, such as Georges the Chouan. No doubt 
Moreau would gladly have seen and gladly have 
helped an insurrection against Bonaparte ; any 
republican, and, what is more, any patriot, would 
at that moment have risked much to save France 
from the ruin that Bonaparte was bringing on her. 
But Bonaparte succeeded in associating him with 
royalist schemes and with schemes of assassin- 
ation. Controlling the Senate, he was able to 
suppress the jury ; controlling every avenue ot 
publicity, he was able to suppress opinion ; and 
the army, Moreau's fortress, was won through its 
hatred of royalism. In this way Bonaparte's last 
personal rival was removed. There remained the 
royalists, and Bonaparte hoped to seize their leader, 
the Comte d'Artois, who was expected, as the 
police knew, soon to join Pichegru and Georges 
at Paris. What Bonaparte would have done with 
him we may judge from the course he took when 
the Comte did not come. On March 15, 1804, 
the Due d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de 
Conde, residing at Ettenheim in Baden, was seized 
at midnight by a party of dragoons, brought to 



112 77ie Due d'Enghien. [a.d. 1804. 

Paris, where he arrived on the 20th, confined iu 
the castle of Vincennes, brought before a military 
commission at two o'clock the next morning, asked 
whether he had not borne arras against the re- 
public, which he acknowledged himself to have 
done, conducted to a staircase above the moat, 
and there shot and buried in the moat. 

This deed was perfectly consistent with Bona- 
parte's professed principles, so that no misunder- 
standing or passing tit of passion is required to 
explain it. He had made, shortly before, a formal 
offer to the pretender through the king of Prussia, 
by whicli he had undertaken to pay him a hand- 
some pension in return for the formal abdication 
of his rights. This had been refused, and Bona- 
parte felt free. That the best course was to strike 
at the heads of the family was a shrewd conclu- 
sion. Neither Louis nor Charles were precisely 
heroes ; and then the whole revolutionary party 
in France would applaud a new tragedy like that 
of January, 1793. Accordingly Bernadotte and 
Curee were delighted with it. That the Due 
d'Enghien was innocent of the conspiracy, was 
nothing to the purpose ; the act was political, not 
judicial; accordingly he was not even charged 
with complicity. That the execution would strike 
horror into the cabinets, and perhaps bring about 



iETAT. 34] The Hereditary Empire. 113 

a new Coalition, belonged to a class of consider- 
ations wliicli at this time Bonaparte systematically 
disregarded. 

Tliis afiair led immediately to the tliouglit 
of giving heredity to Bonaparte's power. The 
thought seems to have commended itself irresisti- 
bly even to strong republicans and to those who 
were most shocked by the murder. To make Bona- 
parte's position more secure seemed the only way 
of avertiuGC a new lieiun of Terror or new convul- 
sions. He himself felt some embarrassment. Like 
Cromwell, he was afraid of the republicanism of 
the army, and heredity pure and simple brought 
him face to face with the question of divorcing 
Josephine. To propitiate the army he chose from 
the titles suggested to him — consul, stadtholder, 
&c. — that of emperor, undoubtedly the most ac- 
curate, and having a sufficiently military sound. 
The other difficulty, after much furious dissension 
between the two families of Bonaparte and Beau- 
harnais, was evaded by giving Napoleon himself 
(but none of his successors) a power of adoption, 
and fixing the succession, in default of a direct 
heir natural or adoptive, first in Joseph and his 
descendants, then in Louis and his descendants. 
Except abstaining from the regal title, no attempt 
was made to conceal tlie abolition of republicanism. 
8 



11-i The Emperor Napoleon. [a.d. iso4. 

Bonaparte was to be called Napoleon, and ' sire ' 
and 'majeste;' grand dignitaries ^itli grand 
titles were appointed, the second and third con- 
suls becoming now arch-chancellor and arch- 
treasurer respectively ; and ' citoyen ' from this 
time gave way to 'monsieur.' Tlie change was 
made by the constituent power of the Senate, and 
the scnatus-consulte is dated May IS, 1804. The 
t itle of Emperor had an ulterior moaning. Adopted 
at the moment when Xapoleon began to feel him- 
self master both in Italy and Germany, it revived 
the memory of Charles the Great. To himself it 
was the \norc satisfactory on that account, and, 
strange to sav, it gave satislaction rather than 
offence to the Head of the Holy Itomau Empire, 
Erancis II. Since Joseph the Habsburg Emper- 
ors had been tired of their title, which, being 
elective, was precarious. They were desirous of 
becoming hereditary emperors in Austria, and they 
now took this title (though without as yet giving 
up the other). Erancis II. bartered his acknowl- 
edgment of Xapoleon's new title against Napo- 
leon's acknowledgment of his own. 

It required some impudence to condemn Moreau 
for royalisra at the very moment that his rival 
was re-establishing monarchy. Yet his trial began 
on Mav 15th. The death of Pichegru, nominally 



.ETAT. .34] Death of PicJicfjru. 115 

by suicide, on April 6th had already furnished 
the rising sultanism with its first dark mystery. 
Moreau was condemned to two years' imprison- 
ment, but was allowed to retire to the United 
States. 



116 Napoleon absolute. [a.d. 1805. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE EMPEROR. 



§ 1. Designs against England and the Continent. — 
Napoleon crowned. 

These changes destroyed all that remained of 
the political life of France. Jacobinism had been 
eradicated in Nivose ; republicanism and royalism 
M'ere paralyzed now. Henceforth there was no 
power or person in France but Bonaparte ; upon 
his absolute will a great nation and an unparalleled 
military force waited. He had undertaken to 
settle a dispute in which France had been engaged 
throughout the eighteenth century ; he liad under- 
taken to humble the might of England. "Would 
not, then, ordinary prudence suggest to him the 
expediency of postponing any aggressive designs 
he might have on the continental Powers ? He 
had done much since Brumaire to reconcile Eu- 
rope to his government ; it now became more 
obviously politic to tread the path of conciliation, 



^TAT. 35.] His great Mistake. 117 

while he assembled the forces of Europe under 
his leadership against the tyrant of the seas. 
Strange to say, he pursued the opposite course, 
and at the very time when his grand stroke against 
England was in suspense extended his power so 
recldessly in Italy, behaved with such insolence 
to the German Powers, and shocked public feeling 
by acts so Jacobinical, that he brought upon him- 
self a new European coalition. It was the great 
mistake of his life. He was not, in the long run, 
a match for England and the continent together ; 
he made at starting tlie irremediable mistake of 
not dividing these two enemies. He seems indeed 
to have set out with a monstrous miscalculation 
which might have ruined him very speedily, for 
he had laid his plan for an invasion of England 
and a war in Europe at the same time. If we 
imagine the invasion successfully begun, we see 
France thrown back into the position of 1799, her 
best general and army cut off from her by the sea, 
while Austria, Russia, and perhaps Prussia pour 
their armies across the Rhine ; but we see that the 
position would have been far worse than in 1799, 
since France without Bonaparte in 1805 would 
have been wholly paralyzed. As it was, the sig- 
nal failure of his English enterprise left room 
for a triumphant campaign in Germany, and 



118 The Neiv Charlemagne. [a.d. isos. 

Ulm concealed Trafalgar from the view of the 
Coutinent. 

The European Coalition had been disarmed 
since Brumaire by the belief that Bonaparte's 
Government was less intolerably aggressive than 
that of the Directory ; this belief gave place in 
1803 to a conviction that he was quite as aggres- 
sive and much more dangerous. England there- 
fore might hope to revive the Coalition, and in 
the spring of 1804 she recalled Pitt to tlie helm in 
order that he might do this. The violent proceed- 
ings of Bonaparte on the occasion of the rupture, 
his occupation of Hanover, his persecution of the 
English representatives in Germany, — Spencer 
Smith at Stuttgart, Drake at Munich, Sir G. Eum- 
bold at Hamburg, — created an alarm in the cabi- 
nets greater than that of 1798, and the murder of 
D'Eugjhien shocked as much as it alarmed them. 
Positive coni][tiest and annexation of territory too 
now went on as rapidly and as openly as in 1798. 
The new empire compared itself to that of Charle- 
magne, which extended over Italy and Germany, 
and on December 2, 1804, a parody of the famous 
transference of the empire took place in Notre 
Dame, Pope Pius VII. appearing there to crown 
Napoleon, who however took the crown from his 
hands and placed it himself upon his own head. 



jETKT. 35.] The Iron Croivn. 119 



Meanwhile the Italian republic was changed into 
a kingdom, which at first Bonaparte intended to 
give to his brother Joseph, but in the end accepted 
for himself. In the spring of 1805, fresh from 
the sacre in Notre Dame, he visited Italy and 
received the iron crown of the Lombard kings at 
Milan (May 2G). A little later the Ligurian re- 
public was annexed, and a principality was found 
for his brother-in-law Bacciochi in Lucca and Piom- 
bino. By these acts he seemed to show himself 
not only ready but eager to fight with all Europe 
at once. It was not his fault that in the autumn 
of 1805, when he fought with Austria and 
Russia in Germany, he was not also maintain- 
ing a desperate struggle in the heart of Eng- 
land ; it was not his fault that Prussia was not 
also at war with him, for his aggressions had 
driven Prussia almost to despair, and only once 
— that is, in the matter of Sir G. Rumbold — 
had he shown the smallest consideration for 
her. And yet at first fortune did not seem to 

favor him. 

Had public opinion been less enslaved in France, 
had the frivolity of the nation been less skilfully 
amused by the operatic exhibitions of the new 
court and the sacre in Notre Dame, it would have 
been remarked that, after most needlessly mvolv- 



120 Want of Success [a.d. i805. 

ing France in war with England, Bonaparte had 
suffered half the year 1803, all the year 1804, 
and again more tlian half the year 1805 to pass 
without striking a single blow, that after the most 
gigantic and costly preparations the scheme of 
invasion was given up, and that finally France 
suffered a crushing defeat at Trafalgar which par- 
alyzed her on the side of England for the rest of 
the war. In order to understand in any degree 
the course he took, it seems necessary to suppose 
that the intoxication of the Marengo campaign 
still held him, that as then, contrary to all expec- 
tation, he had passed the Alps, crushed his enemy, 
and instantly returned, so now he made no doubt 
of passing the Channel, signing peace in London, 
and returning in a month with a fabulous indem- 
nity in his pocket to meet the Coalition in Ger- 
many. To conquer England it was worth while 
to wait two years, but his position was very critical 
when, after losing two years, he was obliged to 
confess himself foiled. He retrieved his position 
suddenly, and achieved a triumph which, though 
less complete than that which he had counted on, 
was still prodigious, — the greatest triumph of his 
life. At the moment when his English scheme 
was ending in deplorable failure, he produced an- 
other, less gigantic but more solid, which he un- 



jETAT. 36.] against England. 121 

folded with a rapid precision and secrecy peculiar 
to himself. In the five years which had passed 
since Marengo his position for the purposes of a 
Continental war had improved vastly. Then he 
had no footing either in Germany or Italy, and 
his new office of First Consul gave him a very 
precarious control over the armies, which them- 
selves were in a poor condition. Now his military 
authority was absolute, and the armies after five 
years of imperialism were in perfect organization ; 
he had ]Srorth Italy to the Adige ; and since the 
Germanic revolution of 1803 ]3avaria, Wlirtem- 
berg, and Baden had passed over to his side. 
Therefore, as the Coalition consisted only of Aus- 
tria, Russia, and England, he might count upon 
success, and the more confidently if he could strike 
Austria before the arrival of the Eussian army. 
It is strange that in this estimate it should be un- 
necessary to take Prussia into the account, since 
the Prussian army (consisting of 250,000 men) 
was at that time supposed to be a match by itself 
for the French. But for ten years Prussia had 
striven to hold a middle course, almost equally dis- 
trustful of France on the one side and of her old 
rival Austria, or her powerful neighbor Eussia, on 
the other. She still clung convulsively to her 
strange system o( immovable neutrality, and in 



122 English and French Fleets. [ad. 1805. 

this war both sides had to put up with the uiicer- 
taiuty whether the prodigious weight of the army 
of Frederick would not be thrown suddenly either 
into its own or into the opposite scale. It was at 
the end of August, 1805, that Napoleon made his 
sudden change of front. At the beginning of that 
month he had been still intent on the invasion of 
England; ever since March nuiritime manoeuvres 
on an unparalleled scale had been carried on with 
the object of decoying the English fleets away from 
the Channel, and so giving an opportunity for the 
army of invasion to cross it on a flotilla under the 
protection of French fleets. But in spite of all 
manccuvres a great English fleet remained station- 
ary at Brest, and Nelson, having been for a mo- 
ment decoyed to Barbados, returned again. In 
the last days of August Admiral Yilleneuve, issu- 
ing from Ferrol, took alarm at the news of the 
approach of an English fleet, and instead of sailing 
northward faced about and retired to Cadiz. Then 
for the first time Napoleon admitted the idea 
of failure, and saw the necessity of screening it 
by some great achievement in another quarter. 
He resolved to throw his whole force upon the 
Coalition, and to do it suddenly. Prussia was 
to be bribed by the very substantial present of 
Hanover. 



^TAT. 3G.1 Napoleons Second Period. 123 



§ 2. Campaign against Anstria and Russia. — Capitu- 
lation of Ulm. — Battle of Austerlitz. — War with 
Prussia. — Treaty of Tilsit. 

Five years had passed since Napoleon liad taken 
the field when the second period of his military 
career began. He now begins to make war as a 
sovereign with a bomidless command of means. 
For five years from 1805 to 1809 lie takes the field 
regularly, and in these campaigns he founds the 
great Napoleonic empire. By the first he breaks 
up the Germanic system and attaches the minor 
German states to France, by the second lie liumbles 
Prussia, by the third he forces Eussia into an al- 
liance, by the fourth he reduces Spain to submis- 
sion, by tlie fifth he humbles Austria. Then follows 
a second pause during which for three years Na- 
poleon's sword is in the sheath, and he is once 
more ruler, not soldier. 

It is to be observed that he sets out with no 
distinct design of conquest, but only because he 
has been attacked by tlie Coalition. Fortune then 
tempts him on from triumph to triumph, and 
throughout he has no other conscious design but to 
turn all the force of the Continent against England. 

Napoleon's strategy always aims at an over- 
whelming surprise. As in 1800, when all eyes 



124 Plan of the Coalition. [a.d. 1805. 

were intent on Genoa, and from Genoa the Austrians 
hoped to penetrate into France, he created an over- 
whelming confusion hy throwing himself across the 
Alps and marching not upon Genoa but upon Milan, 
so now he appeared not in front of the Austrians but 
behind them and between them and Vienna. The 
wavering faith of Bavaria had caused the Austrians 
to jxass the Inn and to advance across the country 
to Ulm. It M'as intended that the Russians 
should join them here, and that the united host 
should invade France, taking Napoleon, as they 
fondly hoped, by surprise. It is to be remarked 
tliat of all the coalitions this seems to have been 
the most loosely combined, owing chiefly to the 
shallowness and inexperience of Alexander. Aus- 
tria was hurried into action, and found herself 
unsupported at need by the Russians, and disap- 
pointed altogether of the help of Prussia, upon 
whicli she had counted. Moreover, so often unfor- 
tunate in lier choice of generals, she had this time 
made the most \infortunate choice of all. Mack, 
who at Naples in 1799 had moved the impatient 
contempt of Nelson, now stood matched against 
Napoleon at the height of his power. He occupied 
the line of the Iller from Ulm to Memmingen, ex- 
pecting the attack of Napoleon, wlio personally 
lingered at Strasburc;, in front. Meanwhile the 



^TAT. 3C.] Capitulation of Ulm. 125 

French armies swarmed from Hanover and down 
the Ehine, treating the small German states half 
as allies half as conquered dependants, and disre- 
garding all neutrality, even that of Prussia, till 
they took up their positions along the Danube from 
Donauworth to Ratisbon far in the rear of Mack. 
The surprise was so complete tliat Mack, who in 
the early days of October used the language of 
confident hope, on the 17th surrendered at Ulm 
with about 26,000 men, while another division, that 
of Werneck, surrendered on the 18tli to Murat 
at Nordlingen. In a month the whole Austrian 
army, consisting of 80,000 men, was entirely dis- 
solved. Napoleon was master of Bavaria, recalled 
the elector to Munich, and received the congratula- 
tions of the electors of Wlirtemberg and Baden (they 
had just at this time the title of electors). It was 
the stroke of Marengo repeated, but without a 
doubtful battle and without undeserved good luck. 
After Marengo it had been left to Moreau to 
win the decisive victory and to conclude the war ; 
this time there was no Moreau to divide the lau- 
rels. The second part of the campaign begins at 
once; on October 28 Napoleon reports that a 
division of his army has crossed the Inn. He 
has now to deal with the Eussians, of whom 
40,000 men have arrived under Kutusoff. He 



12G March to Vienna. [a.d. isos. 

reaches Liiiz on November 4, wliere Gyiilai 
brought him the emperor's proposals for au ar- 
mistice. He replies by demanding Venice and 
Tyrol, and insisting upon the exclusion of Russia 
from the negotiations, conditions M'hich, as ho no 
doubt foresaw, Clyulai did not think himself au- 
thorized to accept. But Napoleon did not intend 
this time, as in 1797 and in 1800, to stop short of 
Vienna. Nothing now could resist his advance, 
for the other Austrian armies, tliat of the arch- 
duke John in Tyrol and that of the archduko 
Charles on the Adige, were held in play by Ney 
and Massena, and compelled at last, instead of 
advancing to the rescue, to retire tln-ough Car- 
niohx into Hungary. On November 14 lie dates 
from the palace of Schonbrunn ; on tlie day before 
Murat had entered Vienna, which the Austrian 
emperor, from motives of humanity, had resolved 
not to defend, and the Frencli also succeeded by 
an unscrupulous trick in getting possession of the 
bridges over the Danube. So far his progress had 
been triumphant, and yet he Avas now in an ex- 
tremely critical position. The archduke Charles 
was approaching from Hungary with 80,000 
Austrians ; another Ixussian army was entering 
Moravia to join Kutusoff, who had with great 
skill escaped from the pursuit of Murat after 



^TAT. 36 Treaty of Potsdam. 127 

the capture of Vienna. Napoleon, though he 
had brought 200,000 men into Germany, had 
not now, since he was obliged to keep open his 
communications down the valley of the Danube, 
a large army available for the field. But, what 
was much more serious, he had recklessly driven 
Prussia into tlie opposite camp. He had marched 
troops across her territory of Ansbach, violating 
her neutrality, and in consequence on November 
3 (while Napoleon was at Linz) she had signed 
with Russia the treaty of Potsdam, which practi- 
cally placed 180,000 of the most highly drilled 
troops in the world at the service of the Coalition. 

\, ,>J : ^^^Such had been Napoleon's rashness, for his auda- 
cious daring was balanced indeed by infinite cun- 

^ ) ning and ingenuity, but was seldom tempered by 
prudence. In this position, it may be asked, how 
could he expect ever to make his way back to 
France ? What he had done to Mack Prussia 
would now do to him. The army of Frederick 
would block the Danube between him and France, 
while the Russians and Austrians, united under 
the archduke, would seek him at Vienna. 

As at Marengo, fortune favored his hazardous 
strategy. The allies had only to play a waiting 
game, but this the Russians and their young Czar, 
who was now in the Moravian head-quarters, would 



128 Battle of Austerlitz. [a.d. 1805. 

not consent to do. He was surrounded by young 
and rash counsellors, and the Eussians, remember- 
ing the victories of Suwaroff in 1799, and remark- 
ing that almost all Napoleon's victories hitherto 
had been won over Austrians, had not yet learned 
to be afraid of him. Napoleon became aware of 
their sanguine confidence from Savary, "whom he 
had sent to the Czar with proposals ; he contrived 
to heighten it by exhibiting his army as ill- 
prepared to Dolgorouki, sent to him on the part 
of the Czar. The end was that the Russians 
(80,000 men, aided by about 15,000 Austrians) 
rushed into the battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 
1805), which brought the third Coalition to an 
end, as that of Hohenlinden had brought the 
second. Nowhere was Napoleon's superiority 
more manifest ; the Eussians lost more than 
20,000 men, tJie Austrians 6,000. The former 
retired at once under a military convention, and 
before the year 1805 was out the treaty at Press- 
burg was concluded with Austria (December 26) 
and that of Schonbrunn with Prussia (December 
15). 

It was a transformation scene more bewildering 
than even that of Marengo, and completely altered 
the position of Napoleon before Europe. To the 
French indeed Austerlitz was not, as a matter of 



^TAT. 36.] Fall of the Roman Empire. 129 



exultation, equal to Marengo, for it did not deliver 
the state from danger, but^nly raised it from a 
perilous eminence to an eminence more perilous 
still. But as a military achievement it was far 
greater, exhibiting the army at the height of its 
valor and organization (the illusion of liberty not 
yet quite dissipated), and the commander at the 
height of his tactical skill ; and in its historical 
results it is gi-eater still, ranking among the great 
events of the world. For not only did it found 
the ephemeral Napoleonic empire by handing over 
Venetia to the Napoleonic monarchy of Italy, and 
Tyrol and Vorarlberg to Napoleon's new client 
Bavaria; it also destroyed the Holy Roman Em- 
pire, while it divided the remains of Hither Aus- 
tria between Wiirtemberg and Baden. In the 
summer of 1806 the emperor of Austria (he had 
this title since 1804) solemnly abdicated the title 
of Roman emperor ; the ancient diet of Ratisbon 
was dissolved, and a new organization was created 
under the name of Confederation of the Rhine, in 
which the minor states of Germany were united 
under the protectorate of Napoleon, much in 
the same way as in former times they had been 
united under the presidency of Austria. Bavaria 
and Wiirtemberg at the same time were raised 
into kingdoms. In all the changes which have 
9 



130 Unstable Equilibrium. [a.d. i806. 

happened siuce, the Holy Komau Empire has 
never been revived, and this event remains the 
greatest in the modern history of Germany. 

But Austeilitz was greater than Marengo in 
another way. That victory had a tranquillizing 
effect, and was soon followed by a peace which 
lasted more than four years. But the equilibrium 
established after Austcrlitz was of the most un- 
stable kind ; it was but momentary, and Avas 
followed by a succession of the most appalling 
convulsions ; the very report of the battle has- 
tenrd tlio dcatli of "William Pitt. A French 
ascendency had existed since 1797, and Napo- 
leon's Government had at first promised to make 
it less intolerable. Since 1803 this hope had van- 
ished, but now suddenly the ascendency was con- 
verted into something like a universal monarchy. 
Europe could not settle down. Tlie first half of 
1806 was devoted to the internal reconstruction of 
Germany, and to the negotiation of jieacc with the 
two great belligerents who remained alter Austria 
and Prussia liad retired, viz., England and Ivussia. 
lUit these negotiations failed, and in failing re- 
vived tlu^ Coalition. On the side of England, 
Fox showed unexpectedly all the firmness of 
Pitt; and the Czar refused his ratification to the 
treaty which his representative at Paris, D'Oubril, 



^-TAT. 37.] Signs of a new Coalition, 131 

had signed. Evei7thing now depended on Prus- 
sia, and again Napoleon adopted the strange policy 
by wliich a year before he had armed all l^Airope 
against himself. Instead of detaching I'russia 
from the Coalition by friendly advances, he drives 
lier into it by liis reckless insolence. At a mo- 
ment when she found herself almost shut out of 
the German world by the new Confederation, Na- 
poleon was found coolly treating with England 
for the restoration of Hanover to George III. In 
August, 180G, just at the moment of the dissolu- 
tion of the Holy Roman Empire and the formation 
of the Confederation of the Khine, Prussia sud- 
denly mobilized her ai'iny, and about the same 
time Itussia rejected the treaty. This amounted 
practically to a new Coalition, or to a revival of 
the old one with Prussia in the place of Austria. 
On September 10 he writes, 'The Prussians wish 
to receive a lesson.' No one knew so well as Na- 
poleon the advantage given by suddenness and 
rapidity. The year before . he had succeeded in 
crushing the Austrians before tlie Ilussiaus could 
come up ; against Prussia he had now the advan- 
tage that she had long been politically isolated, 
and could not immediately get help either from 
Russia or England, — for the moment only Sax- 
ony and Hessen-Cassel stood by her, — while his 



132 Defeat of Prussia. [a.d. isoe. 

armies, to the number of 200,000 men, were al- 
ready stationed in Bavaria and SwaLia, whence in 
a few days they could arrive on the scene of ac- 
tion. The year before Austria liad been ruined 
liy the incapacity of Mack; Prussia now suffered 
IVoin an incapacity diffused through the higher 
ranlvs bt)th of the military and civil service. 
Generals too old, such as Brunswick and ]\Iol- 
lendorf, a military system corrupted by long 
peace, a policy without clearness, a diplomacy 
without honor, had converted the great power 
founded by Frederick into a body without a soul. 
There began a new war, of which the incidents are 
almost precisely parallel to those of the war which 
had so lately closed. As the Austrians at Ulm, so 
now Napoleon crushed the Prussians at Jena and 
Auerstiidt (October 14) before the appearance of 
the Russians ; as he entered Vienna, so now he 
enters Berlin (October 27) ; as he fought a second 
war in Moravia, in which Austria played a second 
part to Eussia, so now from November, 1806, to 
June, 1807, he fights in East Prussia against the 
Russians aided with smaller numbers by the I*rus- 
sians; as he might then, after all his successes, 
have been ruined by the intervention of Prussia, 
so now, had Austria struck in, he might have 
found much diiliculty in making his way back 



iETAT. 37.] Fall of the System of Frederick. 133 

to France; as at Austeiiitz, so at Friedland in 
June, 1807, the Eussians ran hastily into a de- 
cisive battle, in which they ruined their ally but 
not themselves ; as Austria at Pressburg, so Prus- 
sia at Tilsit signed a most humiliating treaty, while 
Russia, as before, escaped, not this time by simply 
retiring from the scene, but by a treaty in which 
Napoleon admitted her to a share in the spoils of 
victory. 

Here was a second catastrophe far more surpris- 
in^T and disastrous than that which it followed so 
closely. The defeat of Austria in 1805 had been 
similar to her former defeats in 1800 and 1797; 
Ulm had been similar to Hohenlinden, the treaty 
of Pressburg to that of Luneville. But the double 
repidse of Jena and Auerstiidt, which threw two 
armies back upon each other, and so ruined both, 
dissolved forever the military creation of the great 
Frederick ; and it was followed by a general panic, 
surrender of fortresses, and submission on the part 
of civil officials, which seemed almost to amount to 
a dissolution of the Prussian state. The defence 
of Colberg by Gneisenau and the conduct of the 
Prussian troops under Lestocq at Eylau, were al- 
most the only redeeming achievements of the fa- 
mous army which, half a century before, had 
withstood for seven years the attack of three 



134 Treaty of Tilsit. [a.d. 1806. 

Great Powers at once. This downfall was ex- 
pressed in the treaty of Tilsit, which was vastly 
more disastrous to Prussia than that of Presshur<jj 
had been to Austria. Prussia was partitioned be- 
tween Saxony, Eussia, and a newly established 
Napoleonic kingdom of Westphalia. Her popu- 
lation was reduced by one-half, her army from 
250,000 to 42,000 (the number fixed a little 
later by the treaty of September, 1808), and Na- 
poleon contrived also by a trick to saddle her for 
some time with the support of a French army of 
150,000 men. She was in fact, and continued till 
1813 to be, a conquered state. Eussia, on the 
other hand, came off with more credit, as well as 
with less loss, than in the former campaign. At 
Eylau in January, 1807, she in part atoned for Aus- 
terlitz. It was, perhaps, the most murderous bat- 
tle that had been Ibught since the wars began, 
and it was not a defeat. Friedland, too, was well 
contested. 

Another great triumph for Napoleon ! But he 
might reflect at a later time tliat he had converted 
Prussia, which for ten years had been the most 
friendly to France of all the great Powers, into 
her most embittered enemy. On April 26, by the 
treaty of Bartenstein, Prussia had joined in all 
form the European Coalition. 



JETAT. 37.1 New Prospect after Tilsit. 135 

§ 3. Napoleon as Kincj of Kings. 

In the two years between Aiii^ust, 1805, and the 
treaty of Tilsit Napoleon had drifted far from his 
first plan of an invasion of England. V>\\t he 
seemed brought back to it now by another route. 
England had marshalled Europe against him ; 
might he not now marshal Europe against Eng- 
land ? Austria was humbled, Prussia Ijeneath his 
feet. Why should Eussia for the future side 
with England against him ? From the outset her 
interest in the wars of the West had been but 
slight ; under Catherine it had been hypocritically 
feigned, in order to divert the eyes of Europe from 
her Eastern conquests ; and perhaps Alexander, 
in 1805 and 1806, had not been free from a sim- 
ilar hypocrisy. The Russians themselves felt this 
so much that after Eriedland they forced Alexan- 
der to abandon the new combination so recently 
arranged at Bartenstein, and to make peace. But 
as Paul, when he left the Second Coalition, had 
actually joined France, Napoleon now saw the 
means of making Alexander do the same. Eng- 
land's tyranny of the seas had been attacked by 
the great Catherine and again by Paul ; on tliis 
subject, therefore, Russian policy might co-oper- 
ate with Napoleon, and, if its real object was only 



136 Coalition against England. [ad. 1807. 

to obtain freedom in Turkey, tliis could be gaiued 
as well by a direct understanding with Napoleon 
as by giving occupation to his arms in Germany. 
Such was tlic basis of tlie treaty of Tilsit, nego- 
tiated between Napoleon and Alexander on an 
island in the river Niemen, with which treaty 
commences a new phase in the struggle between 
Napoleon and England. Russia not only abandons 
England, but comljines with France to humble 
her. Hitherto we have lieard of coalitions against 
France, of which England has been the soul or at 
least the paymaster. At Tilsit Napoleon founds 
a European coalition against England. 

A pause occurs after Friedland, during which 
Europe begins slowly to reali/c her position, and 
to penetrate the character of Napoleon. It took 
some time to wear out his reputation of peace- 
maker; at his breach with England in 1803 he 
had appealed to that jealousy of England's mar- 
itime power which was widely spread ; many 
thought the war was forced upon him, and as to 
the war of 1805, it could not be denied that Aus- 
tria and Piussia had attacked him. His absolute 
control over the French press enabled In'm almost 
to dictate public opinion. 

But the conquest of Germany, achieved in little 
more time than had sufficed to Bonaparte ten 



jETAT. 38] European Confederacy. 137 

years before for the conquest of Italy, put liim in 
a new light. He h^l already passed through 
many phases : he had been the invincible cham- 
j)ion of liberty, then the destroyer of Jacobinism 
and champion of order, then the new Constantino 
and restorer of the church, then the pacificator of 
the world, then the founder of a new monarchy in 
France. ISTow suddenly, in 1807, he stands forth 
in the new character of head of a great European 
confederacy. It has been usual to contrast the 
consulate with the empire, but the great transfor- 
mation was made by the wars of 1805-7, and the 
true contrast is between the man of Brumaire and 
the man of Tilsit. The empire as founded in 1804 
did not perhaps differ so much from the consulate 
after Marengo as botli differed, alike in spirit and 
form, from the empire such as it began to appear after 
Pressburg and was consolidated after Tilsit. Be- 
tween 1800 and 1805 Napoleon, under whatever 
title, was absolute ruler of France, including Bel- 
gium, the left bank of the PJiine, Savoy and Nice, 
and practically also ruler of Holland, Switzerland, 
and North Italy to the Adige, which states had a 
republican form. The title emperor meant in 
1804 little more than military ruler. But now 
emperor has rather its mediaeval meaning of para- 
mount over a confederacy of princes. Napoleon 



138 Napoleon King of Kings. [v.d. 1807. 

lias become a kiug of kings. This system had 
been commenced iu the consulate, when a king- 
dom of Etruria under tlie consul's proLecLion was 
created for the benclit of his ally, the King of 
Spain ; it was carried a stage further on the eve 
of the Avar of 1805, when the kingdom of Italy 
was created, of which Napoleon himself assumed 
the sceptre, but committed the government to 
Eugene Beauharnais as viceroy. But now almost 
all Italy and a great part of Germany is subjected 
to this system. The Bonaparte f;iuiily, wliich 
before had contended for the succession in France, 
so that Joseph actually refuses, as beneath him, 
the crown of Italy, now accept subordinate croM'ns. 
Joseph becomes King of Naples, tlie Bourbou dy- 
nasty having been expelled immediately after the 
peace of Bressburg ; Louis becomes King of Hol- 
land ; Jerome, the youngest brother, receiAes after 
Tilsit a kingdom of V>''estphalia, composed of terri- 
tory taken from I'russia, of Hanover, and of the 
electorate of llessen-Cassel, which had shared the 
fall of Brussia ; somewhat earlier ]\Iurat, husband 
of the most ambitious of the Bonaparte sisters, 
Caroline, had received the grand-duchy of Berg. 
By the side of these Bonaparte princes there are 
the German princes who now look up to France, 
as under the Holy Bomau Empire they had looked 



iETAT. 33] The Confederation of the Rhine. 139 

lip to Austria. Tliese are formed into a Confed- 
eration in which the Archljisliop of Mainz (Dal- 
berg) presides, as he had before presided in the 
empire. Two of the princes have now the title of 
kings, and, enriched as they are by the seculariza- 
tion of cl lurch lands, the raediatization of imme- 
diate nobles, and the subjugation of free cities, they 
have also the substantial power. A princess of 
Bavaria weds Eugene Beauliarnais, a princess of 
Wiirtemberg Jerome Bonaparte. At its founda- 
tion in 1806 the Confederation had twelve mem- 
bers, but in the end it came to include almost 
all the states of Germany except Austria and 
Prussia. 

A change seems to take place at the same time 
in N'apoleon's personal relations. In 1804, though 
the divorce of Josephine was debated, yet it ap- 
pears to be Napoleon's fixed intention to bequeath 
his crown by the method of adoption to the eldest 
son of Louis by Hortense Beauharnais. But this 
child died suddenly of croup on May 5, 1807, 
while Napoleon was absent in Germany, and the 
event, occuning at the moment when he attained 
his position of king of kings, probably decided 
him in liis own mind to proceed to the divorce. 

It was impossible to give crowns and principali- 
ties to tlie Bonaparte family without allowing a 



140 Revived of Nohility. [a.d. iso7. 

share of similar distinctions to the leading politi- 
cians and generals of France. He was tlierefore 
driven to revive titles of nobility. To do this was 
to abandon the revolutionary principle of equality, 
but Napoleon always bore in mind the necessity of 
bribing in the most splendid manner the party up- 
on whose support ever since Brumaire he had de- 
pended, and which may be described shortly as 
the Senate. When in 1802_lie received the life- 
consulate, he had proceeded instantly to create 
new dotations for the senators ; now he feels that 
he must devise for them still more splendid bribes. 
His first plan is to give them feudal lordships 
outside France. Thus Berthier, his most indispen- 
sable minister, becomes sovereign prince of Neuf- 
cliatel, Bernadotte sovereign prince of Pontecorvo, 
Talleyrand sovereign prince of Benevento. Espe- 
cially out of the Venetian territory, given to France 
at Pressburg, are taken fiefs (not less than twelve 
in all), to which are attached tlie title of duke. 
These innovations fall in 1806, that is, in the mid- 
dle of the period of transformation. But after Tilsit, 
when Napoleon felt more strongly both the power 
and the necessity of rewarding his servants, he cre- 
ated formally a new noblesse, and revived the majo- 
rat in defiance of the revolutionary code. In the 
end, besides the three sovereign princes just 



^TAT. 38.] The Balance of Power. 141 

mentioned, he created four hereditary princes (Ber- 
thier is in both lists) and thirty-one hereditary 
dukes. There were also many counts and barons. 
The system was prodigiously wasteful. Of public 
money Berthier received more than £50,000 a year, 
Davoust about £30,000, nine other ofiicials more 
than £10,000, and twenty-three others more than 
£4,000. 

After Marengo he had seen the importance of 
reconciling Europe to his greatness by making 
peace. After Tilsit it was still more urgently nec- 
essary that he should dispel the alarm which his 
conquests had now excited everywhere. But this 
time he made no attempt to do so ; this time he 
can think of nothing but pushing his success to 
the destruction of England ; and Europe gradually 
became aware that the evil so long dreaded of a 
destruction of the balance of power had come in 
the very worst form conceivable, and that her des- 
tiny was in the hands of a man whose headlong 
ambition was as unprecedented as his energy and 
good fortune. 

As in 1805 he had been drawn into the conquest 
of Germany in the course of a war with England, 
so now he assails all the neutral powers, and 
shortly afterwards violently annexes Spain, not 
so much from abstract love of conquest as in order 



142 Dictafion to A'entrals. [a.d. 1807. 

to turn aoaiust EDoluud the forces of all the Conti- 
nent at once. As he had left Boulogne for Ger- 
many, he now, as it were, returns to Boulogne. 
His successes had put into his hands two new in- 
struments of war against England, instruments 
none the less welcome because the very act of 
using them made him master of the whole Conti- 
nent, He had hinted at the first of these "udien 
the war with England began in 1803, by saying 
that in this war he did not intend that there should 
be any neutrality. What he meant was explained 
in 1806 by the edict issued from Berlin. In ad- 
dition to that limited right, which the belligerent 
has by international law, to prevent by blockade 
the trade of a neutral with the enemy and to pun- 
ish the individual trader by confiscation of ship 
and goods, Napoleon now assumed the right of pre- 
venting such commerce without blockade by con- 
trolling the neutral governments. English goods 
were to be seized everywhere, and the harbors of 
neutrals to be closed against English ships under 
penalty of war witli Erance. Such a threat, in- 
volving a claim to criticise and judge the acts of 
neutral governments, and to inflict on them an 
enormous pecuniary fine, was almost equivalent 
to the annexation at one stroke of all the neu- 
tral states. The other instrument had a similar 



^TAT. 3s.] Weakness of the Confederacy. 143 

character. The French fleet having been crippled 
at Tralalgar, he proposed now to reinforce it by all 
the other fleets iu Europe, and to get possession 
of all the resources of all the maritime states. His 
eyes therefore become now fixed on Denmark, 
I'ortugal, and Sjjain. 

Such is Napoleon as king of kings, and such 
are his views. This unique phase of European 
history lasted five years, reckoning from the treaty 
of Tilsit to the breach with liussia. Europe con- 
sists now of a confederacy of monarchical states 
looking up to a paramount power (like India at 
the present day). The confederacy is held together 
by the war with England, which it puts under an 
ineffective commercial blockade, suffering itself in 
return a more effective one. But Napoleon feels 
that Spain and Portugal must be brought under 
his immediate administration, in order that their 
maritime resources may be properly turned against 
England. 

It cannot be necessary to point out that this 
method of attacking England was essentially ill- 
judged, however marvellous the display of power 
to which it gave rise. The confederacy was held 
together by the weakest of bonds, viz. by sheer 
force. What was unsatisfactorily achieved by the 
miracles of Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedlaud, might 



144 European Party of Iiisitrrcctiou. [\.v. iso7. 

have been accomplished far better without them by 
diplomacy acting on the Avide-spvead jealousy and 
dislike of England. Napoleon's confederacy might 
always be suspected oi' wishing to pass over to the 
side of England, as at last it did. Austria begins 
to meditate a new war on the morrow of Pressburg, 
and Prussia is humbled so intolerably that she is 
forced into plans of insurrection. Throughout these 
five years a European party of insurrection is 
gradually forming. It has two great divisions, 
one scattered through Germany, at the head of 
which Austria places herself in 1809, the other in 
Spain and Portugal, which is aided by England. 
Id Germany this movement is successfully re- 
pressed nntil 1813, but in the Peninsula it gains 
ground steadily from 1809. After 1812 both 
movements swell the great Anti-Xapoleonic Eevo- 
lution which then sets in. ^ 



Invasion of Portugal. 145 



CHAPTER V. 

REBELLION. 

§ 1. French Array in Spain. — Popular Rising in 
Spain. — Napoleon in Spain. 

Immediately after Tilsit Napoleon entered on 
his new course, whicli had heen arranged with 
Russia in secret articles. In August he required 
the King of Denmark to declare war with Eng- 
land ; hut here England, seeing herself threatened 
by a coalition of all Europe at once, interfered 
with desperate resolution. She required Denmark 
to surrender her fleet (consisting of twenty ships 
of tlie line and a number of frigates) in deposit, 
promising to restore it at the peace ; on receiving 
a refusal she took possession of it by force. At 
the same time he formed an army under Junot 
for the invasion of Portugal, with which state, 
as the old ally of England, Xapoleon used no 
ceremony. The feeble government consented to 
almost all his demands, agreed to enter the 
Continental system and to declare war against 
10 



146 Partition of Portugal. [a.d. i807. 

Euglaud; only the regent had a scruple which 
restrained him from confiscating the property of 
private Englishmen. From this moment Portu- 
gal is doomed, and negotiations are opened with 
Spain concerning the partition of it. But out of 
these negotiations grew unexpected events. 

For more than ten years Spain had heen drawn 
in the w'ake of revolutionary France. To Napo- 
leon from the beginning of his reign she had been 
as subservient as Holland or Switzerland ; she 
had made war and peace at his bidding, had sur- 
rendered Trinidad to make the treaty of Amiens, 
had given her fleet to destruction at Trafalgar. 
In other states equally subservient, such as Hol- 
land and the Italian Eepublic, Napoleon had re- 
modelled the government at his pleasure, and in 
the end had put his own family at the head of it. 
After Tilsit he thought himself strong enough to 
make a similar change in Spain, and the occupa- 
tion of Portugal seemed to afford the opportunity 
of doing this. By two conventions signed at Fon- 
tainebleau on October 27 the partition of Portugal 
was arranged with Spain. The Prince of the 
Peace was to become a sovereign prince of the 
Algarves, the King of Spain was to have Brazil 
with tlie title of Emperor of the two Americas, 
&c. ; but the main provision was that a French 



JETAT. 3P.] French Army in Spain. 147 

army was to stand on the threshold of Spain 
ready to resist any intervention of England. The 
occupation of Portugal took place soon after, Ju- 
not arriving at Lisbon on November 30, just as 
the royal family vfith a following of several thou- 
sands set sail for Brazil under protection of the 
English fleet. At the same time there commenced 
in defiance of all treaties a passage of French 
troops into Spain, which continued until 80,000 
had ai'rived, and had taken quiet possession of a 
number of Spanish fortresses. At last Murat was 
appointed to the command of the army of Spain. 
He entered the country on March 1, 1808, and 
marched on Madrid, calculating that the king 
would retire and take refuge at Seville or Cadiz. 
This act revealed to the world, and even to a large 
party among the Erench themselves, the nature of 
the power which had been created at Tilsit. The 
lawless acts of Napoleon's earlier life were palli- 
ated by the name of the French Eevolution, and 
since Brumaire he had established a character for 
comparative moderation. But here was naked vio- 
lence without the excuse of fanaticism ; and on 
what a scale ! One of the greater states of Europe 
was in the hands of a burglar, who would more- 
over, if successful, become king not only of Spain 
but of a boundless empire in the New World. 



148 Condition of Spain. [a.d. isos. 

The sequel was worse even than this commence- 
ment, although the course which events took seems 
to show that by means of a little delay he might 
have attained his end without such o]Den defiance 
of law. The administration of Spain had long 
been in the contemptible hands of Manuel Godoy, 
supposed to be the queen's lover, yet at the same 
time high in the favor of King Charles IV. Fer- 
dinand, the heir apparent, headed an opposition, 
but in character he was not better than the trio he 
opposed, and he had lately been put under arrest 
on suspicion of designs upon his father's life. To 
have fomented this opposition without taking 
either side, and to have rendered both sides equal- 
ly contemptible to the Spanish people, was Napo- 
leon's game. The Spanish people, who profoundly 
admired him, might then have been induced to 
ask him for a king. Napoleon, however, perpe- 
trated his crime before the scandal of the palace 
broke out. The march of Murat now brought it 
to a head. On March 17 a tumult broke out at 
Aranjuez, which led to the fall of the favorite, and 
then to the abdication of the king, and the procla- 
mation of Ferdinand amid universal truly Span- 
ish enthusiasm. It was a fatal mistake to have 
forced on this popular explosion, and Napoleon 
has characteristically tried to conceal it by a 



^TAT. 38.] Abdication of Charles IV. 149 

supposititious letter, dated March 29, in which he 
tries to throw the blame upon Murat, to whom 
the letter professes to be addressed. It warns 
Murat against rousing Spanish patriotism and 
creating an opposition of the nobles and clergy, 
which will lead to a levee en masse, and to a war 
without end. It predicts, in short, all that took 
place, but it has every mark of invention, and was 
certainly never received by Murat. Tlie reign of 
Ferdinand having thus begun, all that the French 
could do was to abstain from acknowledging him, 
and to encourage Charles to withdraw his abdica- 
tion as given under duress. By this means it 
became doubtful who was king of Spain, and Napo- 
leon, having carefully refrained from taking a side, 
now presented himself as arbiter. Ferdinand was 
induced to betake himself to Napoleon's presence at 
Bayonne, where he arrived on April 21 ; his father 
and mother followed on the 30th. Violent scenes 
took place between ftither and son : news arrived 
of an insurrection at Madrid and of the stern sup- 
pression of it by Murat. In the end Napoleon suc- 
ceeded in extorting the abdication both of Charles 
and Ferdinand. It was learned too late that the in- 
surrection of Spain had not really been suppressed. 
Tliis crime, as clumsy as it was monstrous, 
brought on that great popular insurrection of 



150 Ambuscade of Bayonnc. [a.d. I8O8. 

Europe against the universal monarchy, which 
has profoundly modi (led all subsequent history, 
and makes the Anti-Napoleonic Eevolution an 
event of the same order as the French Eevolu- 
tion. A rising unparalleled for its suddenness 
and sublime spontaneonsness took place through- 
out Spain and speedily found a response in Ger- 
many. A new impulse was given, out of which 
grew the great nationality movement of the nine- 
teenth century. Meanwhile Napoleon, having first 
offered the throne of Spain to his brother Louis, 
Avlio refused it, named Joseph king, retaining, 
however, a reversion to himself and heirs in de- 
fault of male heirs of Joseph, who had only daugh- 
ters. The royal council first, afterwards a jvnita 
of nobles assembled at Bayonne, accepted him on 
July 7. But it must have become clear to Na- 
poleon almost at once that he had committed the 
most enormous of blunders. Instead of <'aining 
Spain he had in fact lost it, for hitherto he had 
been master of its resources without trouble, 
whereas to support Joseph he was obliged in this 
same year to invade Spaiu in person with not less 
than 180,000 men. With Spain too he lost Port- 
ugal, which in June followed the Spanish example 
of insurrection, and had Spain henceforth for an 
ally and not for an enemy. Hitherto he had had 



^TAT. .39.] Spanish Revolution. 151 

no serious coDception of any kind of war not 
strictly professional. He had known popular 
risings in Italy, La Vendee, and Egypt, but 
had never found it at all difficult to crush them. 
The determined insurrection of a whole nation of 
11,000,000 was a new experience to him. How 
serious it might be he learned as early as July, 
when Dupont, with about 20,000 men, surren- 
dered at Baylen in Andalusia to the Spanish 
General Castahos. In August he might wake to 
anotlier miscalculation of which he had been 
guilty. An English army landed in Portugal, 
defeated Junot at Vimeiro, and forced him to 
sign the convention of Cintra. By this he 
evacuated Portugal, in which country the insur- 
rection had already left him much isolated. This 
occurrence brought to light a capital feature of the 
insurrection of the Peninsula, viz. that it was in 
free communication everywhere with the power 
and resources of England. 

The Spanish affair is the best illustration of 
the insensate blindness which marks the imperial 
period of Napoleon. It shows him wedded to a 
system of violence which yields little gain when 
it is most successful, and causes prodigious loss 
when it is in any degree unsuccessful. On the 
whole, in 1808 he is not stronger than in 1803, 



152 Invasion of Spain. [a.d. 1808. 

but far weaker ; for in 1803 he liacl in Italy, Ger- 
many, and Spain a prodigious ascendency, which 
did not require to be supported everywhere by 
armies, and did not yet excite hatred, but was 
regarded in Spain with enthusiasm, in Prussia 
with friendly equanimity, even in Austria with 
resignation. All he has done since is to convert 
this ascendency into actual government, but in 
the conversion more than half of it has escaped. 
Austria and Prussia are preparing for resistance to 
» the death; Spain has begun it already, and has 
passed over to the English from the French 
coalition. 

Thus the monarchy of Tilsit suffered within a 
year the most terrible rebuff. Napoleon himself 
now appears upon the scene. His first step was 
to revive the memory of Tilsit by a theatrical 
meeting with Alexander, which was arranged at 
Erfurt in September. The power of the duum- 
virate was there displayed in the most imposing 
manner, and the alliance was strengthened by new 
engagements taken by Napoleon with respect to 
the Danubian principalities. At the same time 
he checked the rising spirit of resistance in Prus- 
sia by driving from office the great reforming min- 
ister Stein. At the beginning of November he 
was ready for the invasion of Spain. Joseph had 



^TAT. 39.] Entry into Madrid. 153 

retired to Vittoria, and the armies of the insurrec- 
tion fronted him along the Ebro under the com- 
mand of Blake, Castailos, and Palafox. Between 
November 7 and 11 the army of Blake was dis- 
solved by Lefebvre, and Napoleon entered Burgos, 
which was mercilessly pillaged ; on the 23d Cas- 
tanos was defeated at Tudela by Lannes ; by De- 
cember 2 Napoleon, having forced the mountain 
passes, was before Madrid, and on the 4th he was 
in possession of the town, where, endeavoring 
somewhat late to conciliate the liberalism of Eu- 
rope, he proclaimed the abolition of the Inquisi- 
tion and of feudalism, and the reduction of the 
number of convents to one-third. He remained in 
Spain till the middle of January, 1809, but he was 
not allowed repose during the interval. Sir John 
Moore had advanced from Portugal as far as Sala- 
manca, and determined in the middle of Decem- 
ber to assist the insurrection by marching on 
Valladolid. Soult was at Carrion and was 
threatened by this advance, since the English 
force, after Moore had effected his junction with 
Baird, who arrived from Corunna, at Majorga, 
amounted to 25,000 men. Napoleon hoped to 
cut its communications, and so deal one of his 
crushing blows at the enemy with whom he was 
always at war, yet whom he never, except at 



154 Austria Roused. [a.d. i809. 

AVaterloo, met in tlio field. He set out on the 
22d with about 40,000 men, and marched 200 
miles in ten days over mountains in the middle 
of winter. ]\loore saw the danger, retired to 
l^enaveute, and bknv nj) the bridges over the 
Ezla. Napoleon advanced as far as Astorga 
(Jan. 1) ; but he had missed his marjv, and pro- 
fessed to receive information which showed him 
that he was urgently wanted at Paris. He re- 
turned to Yalladolid, M'hence on Jauuary 17 he 
set out for France. The end of JMoore's expedi- 
tion belongs to Euglish history. 

§ 2. First German War of Liberation. — JDadle of Wag- 
ram. — Treat)/ of Schonbriiiin. — War with Jxiissia 
impending. — Divorce of Josephine. — Marriage 
with Marie Louise. 

Another storm was indeed gathering. Austria 
had been reduced to despair by the blows she had 
received, first at rressbm-g, then at Tilsit, and the 
fate of the royal house of Spain seemed like a 
warning to tliat of Austria. But the year that 
followed Tilsit offered her a chance, which she 
grasped as a last chance. Spain, which formerly 
had given Napoleon help, now swallowed up 
300,000 of his troops, so that in the autumn of 
ISOS he had been obliijed to withdraw from Pi'us- 



^TAT. .39.] First War of Liberal ion. 155 

sia the large army which he had kept for more 
than a year quartered on that unhappy country. 
Napoleon could spare henceforth only half his 
force, and there was now no douht that Prussia 
would be as hostile to him as she dared. True, 
the army of Frederick had ceased to exist, but the 
country was full of soldiers who had belonged to 
it, full of skilled officers, and Spain had filled all 
minds with the thouglit of popular war. Stein 
and Scluirnhorst had been preparing a lev^e en 
masse in Prussia and an insurrection in the new 
kingdom of Westphalia. Moreover the Austrian 
statesmen tliought they saw an opposition to Na- 
poleon rising at home under the leadership of 
Talleyrand, and they thought also that the Spanish 
affair had alienated Alexander. It was reported 
that Talleyrand had said to Alexander at Erfurt, 
' Sire, you are civilized and your nation is not ; we 
are civilized and our Sovereign is not ; you there- 
fore are our natural ally.' Such considerations and 
illusions caused the war of 1809, which may be 
called the First German War of Liberation, under 
the leadership of Austria. It was welcomed by 
Napoleon, who wanted new victories to fetrieve 
his position. His superiority, though on the wane, 
was still enormous. Through the Confederation of 
the Rhine he had now a great German army at 



156 War icith Austria. [a.d. iso9. 

his disposal, ■\vliicb he placed under French gener- 
als. His frontier was most formidabl}'' advanced 
through the possession of Tyrol and Venetia. 
Eussia was on his side, and, though slic did not 
actively' help him in the field, was of great use in 
holding down Prussia ; England was against him, 
but could do little for an inland state such as 
Austria now was. In these circumstances the 
attitude of Austria had something heroic about it, 
like that of Spain, and the war throughout is like 
a somewhat pale copy of the Spanish insurrection. 
But Austria has what Spain had not, the advan- 
tage of organization and intelligence. Since Press- 
burg she had passed through a period of reform 
and shown some signs of moral regeneration, Stad- 
ion and the arcliduke Charles doing ior her, though 
not so eflectively, what Stein and Seharidiorst did 
for Prussia. Few wars have begun with less osten- 
sible ground, or more evidently from an intolerable 
position. Napoleon accused Austria of arming, 
of wanting war ; Austria expostulated, but in vain ; 
and war began. It began early in April, and the 
proclamation of the archduke Charles was ad- 
dressed to the whole German nation. The watch- 
word of Austria against France was now liberty 
and nationality. A good general conception of the 
war may be obtained by comparing it with that 



.ETAT. 39.] Battle of the Marchfeld. 157 

of 1805, which it resembles in certain large fea- 
tures. Again there is a short but decisive passage 
of arms in Bavaria ; in a five days' struggle, cele- 
brated for Napoleon's masterly manoeuvres, tlie 
Austrians are driven out of llatisbon (April 23), 
and the way to Vienna is laid open. Again ISTa- 
poleon enters Vienna (May 13). But the war in 
Italy this time begins farther east, on the Piave. 
Eugene Beauharnais, after an unfortunate com- 
mencement, when he was defeated at Sacile by 
the archduke John, makes a successful advance, 
and being joined by Marmont, who makes his way 
to him from Dalmatia by way of Fiume, drives 
the Austrian army into Hungary, defeats them at 
Eaab, and effects a junction with Napoleon at 
Bruck. Then, as before, the w^ar is transferred 
from Vienna to the other side of the Danube. 
But the Austrian resistance is now far more obsti- 
nate than in 1805. From the island of Lobau 
Napoleon throws his troops across the river in the 
face of the archduke. A battle takes place which 
occupies two successive days (May 21, 22), and is 
sometimes called the battle of the Marchfeld, but 
is sometimes named from the villages of Gross- 
Aspern and Essling. It stands with that of Eylau 
in 1807 among the most terrible and bloody battles 
of the period. In all perhaps 50,000 men fell, 



158 Battle of Wagram. [a.d. 1809. 

among wLoin was Marshal Lannes, and the French 
were driven back into their island. Five weeks 
passed in inaction before Napoleon could retrieve 
this check, five weeks during which the condition 
of Europe was indeed singular, since its whole 
destiny depended upon a single man, and he, be- 
sides the ordinary risks of a campaign, was threat- 
ened by an able adversary who had recently brought 
him to the verge of destruction, and by outraged 
populations which might rise in insurrection round 
him. This is the moment of the glory of Hofer, 
the hero of the peasant war in Tyrol. Once more, 
however, Napoleon's skill and fortune prevailed. 
On the night of July 4th he succeeded, under cover 
of a false attack, in throwing six bridges from Lo- 
bau to the left bank of the Danube, over which 
more than 100,000 men passed before morning, 
and w^ere arrayed upon the Marchfeld. The obsti- 
nate battle of Wagram followed, in wliich, by a 
miscalculation which became the subject of nmch 
controversy, the archduke John came too late to 
his brotlier's help. The Austrians were worsted, 
but by no means decisively, and retired in good 
order. 

Austerlitz and Friedland had led at once to 
peace, because the principal belligerent, Eussia, 
had little direct interest in the war; Wagram 



jETXT. .39.] Armistice signed at Znaim. 159 

ought to have had no similar effect. Austria was 
engaged in a war of liberation ; Tyrol was emulat- 
ing Spain ; there should therefore have been no 
negotiation with the invader. But Germany had 
as yet but half learnt the Spanish principle of war ; 
in particular the Austrian Government and the 
archduke Charles himself belonged to Old Austria 
rather than to ISTew Germany. In the campaign 
the archduke had fallen much below his reputa- 
tion, having allowed it plainly to appear that 
Xapoleon frightened him, and now, instead of 
appealing again to German patriotism, he signed 
at Znaim (July 11th) an armistice similar to that 
which Melas had so unaccountably concluded after 
Marengo, But it was by no means certain that 
all was yet over. North Germany might rise, 
as Spain had risen and as Tyrol had risen. The 
archduke Ferdinand had marched into Poland and 
threatened Thorn, with the intention of provoking 
such a movement in Prussia, and England was 
preparing a great armament which the patriots 
of North Germany, who now began to emulate the 
Spanish guerilla leaders, — Schill, Dornberg, Katt, 
Brunswick, — anxiously expected. There seems 
little doubt that, if this armament had made 
Germany its object, Germany would at once have 
sprung to arms and have attempted, perhaps 



160 Treaty of Schonhriiim. [a.d. iso9. 

prematurely, what iu 1813 it accomplished. 
AVhat was expected in Germany had happened 
already in the Peninsula. Arthur Wellesley had 
landed at Lisbon on April 22, and in less than 
a month had dri\'en Soult iu confusion out of 
Portugal. Iu July he undertook an invasion 
of Spain by the valley of Tagus. Thus both 
the quantity and quality of resistance to Xa- 
poleon was greater than at any former time ; 
but it was scattered, and the question was whether 
it could concentrate itself. 

England was unfortunate this time in her inter- 
vention. Tlie armament did not set sail till 
August, when in Austria the war seemed to be 
at an end, and when Wellesley, after M-inning the 
battle of Talavera, had seen himself obliged to 
retire into Portugal, and it was directed not to 
Germany but against Antwerp. It was therefore 
a mere diversion, and as such it proved unsuccess- 
ful. It created indeed a great flutter of alarm 
in the administration at Paris, which saw France 
itself left unprotected while its armies occupied 
Vienna and Madrid, but by mismanagement and 
misfortune the great enterprise failed, and accom- 
plished nothing but the capture of Flushing. 

And so the last triumph of Napoleon was 
achieved, and the treaty of Schonbrunn was signed 



jETAT. 40] Alienation from Russia. 161 

on October 14. By this treaty, as by former 
treaties, he did not merely end a war or annex 
territory, but developed his empire and gave it a 
new character. He now brought to an end the 
duumvirate which had been established at Tilsit. 
Under that system his greatness had been de- 
pendent on the concert of Eussia. He had had 
the czar's permission to seize Spain, the czar's co- 
operation in humbling Austria. Schonbrunn made 
his empire self-dependent and self-supporting, and 
thus in a manner completed the edifice. But he 
could not thus discard Eussia without making her 
an enemy, and accordingly the Eussian war 
appears on the horizon at the very moment 
that the Austrian war is terminated. Tliis trans- 
formation was accomplished by first humbling 
Austria, and then, as it were, adopting her and 
giving her a favored place in the European 
confederacy. She lost population to the amount 
of 3,500,000, besides her access to the sea ; 
she paid an indemnity of more than £3,000,000, 
and engaged to reduce her army to 150,000. But, 
thus humbled, a high and unique honor was 
reserved for her. We cannot be quite certain 
whetlier it was part of Napoleon's original plan to 
claim the hand of an archduchess, though this 
seems likely, since Napoleon would hardly break 
H 



162 Marriage Negotiations. [a.d. isio. 

with Eussia unless he felt secure of the alliance of 
Austria, and yet in the treaty of Schoubrunn 
he does not hesitate to offend Eussia by raising 
tlie Polish question. What is certain is that after 
his return to France Napoleon proceeded at once 
to the divorce ; that at the same time he asked the 
czar for the hand of his sister ; that upon this 
Austria, alarmed, and seeing her own doom in the 
Eussian match, gave him to understand (as he may 
very well have calculated that she would do) that 
he might have an archduchess ; and that upon 
this he extricated himself from his engagement 
to the czar with a rudeness whicli might seem 
intended to make him an enemy. At the same 
time he refused to enter into an engagement 
not to raise the Polish question. We can under- 
stand the alarm of Austria, for the Eussian match 
would perhaps have riveted most firmly the chains 
of Germany. In Napoleon's conduct reappears the 
same peculiarity that he had shown in his treat- 
ment of Prussia and of Spain. It seems less like 
statesmanship than some malignant vice of nature 
til at he always turns upon an ally, even an 
ally who is most necessary to him. The sudden 
turn he now took, apparently without any neces- 
sity, involved him in the Eussian expedition, and 
caused his ruin. 



^TAT. 41.] Marie Louise. 163 

At an earlier period we saw Napoleon urged by 
his brothers to divorce Josephine, but refusing 
steadfastly and apparently resolved upon adopting 
the eldest son of Louis and Hortense. He had 
now quite ceased to be influenced by his brothers, 
but at the same time he had risen to such great- 
ness that he had himself come to think differently 
of the question. Fourteen years before he had 
been warmly attached to Josephine ; this attach- 
ment had been an effective feature in the character 
of republican hero which he then sustained. Mme. 
de Staiil had been profoundly struck, when, on 
being charged by her with not liking women, he 
had answered, ' J'aime la mienne.' ' It was such 
an answer, ' slie said, ' as Epaminondas would have 
given ! ' He is now equally striking in the part 
of an Oriental sultan, and when he discards his 
Josephine from motives of ambition he requires 
to be publicly flattered for his self-sacrifice by the 
officials, by Josephine herself, and even by her 
son Eugene Beauharnais ! 

The archduchess ]\Iarie Louise, who now ven- 
tured to take the seat of Marie Antoinette, seems 
to have been of amiable but quite insignificant 
character. Her letters are childlike. She became 
a complete Frenchwoman, but, owing to a certain 
reserve of manner, was never specially popular. 



164 The King of Rome. [a.d. isio. 

On March 20, 1811, slie bore a son, wlio took the 
title of King of Eome, by which in the Holy 
Roman Empire the successor had been designated. 
France had thus become once more as monarchi- 
cal as in the proudest days of Versailles ; but the 
child of empire was reserved for what his father 
called ' the saddest of fates, the fate of Astyanax.' 

§ 3. Annexation of Holland and Westphalia. — Dissolu- 
tion of the alliance of Tilsit. — Invasion of Russia. 

Y Arrived now at the pinnacle, Napoleon pauses, 

as he had paused after Marengo. We are disposed 
to ask, What use will he now make of his bound- 
less power ? It was a question he never consid- 
ered, because the object he had set before himself 
in 1803 was not yet attained; he was not in the 
least satiated, because, much as he had gained, 
he had not trained what he sought, that is, the 
humiliation of England. As after Tilsit, so after 
Schonbrunn, he only asks, How may the new re- 
sources be best directed against England? Yet he 
did not, as we might expect, devote himself to 
crushing the resistance of the Peninsula. This 
he seems to have regarded with a mixed feeling 
of contempt and despair, not knowing how to 
overcome it, and persuading himself that it was 
not worth a serious effort. He persisted in saying 



^TAT. 41.] Annexation of Sea-Coast. 165 



that the only serious element in the Spanish oppo- 
sition was the English army ; this would fall with 
England herself; and England, he thought, was 
on tlie point of yielding to the blockade of the 
Continental system. He devotes himself hence- 
forth therefore to heightening the rigor of this 
blockade. From the beginning it had led to con- 
tinual annexations, because only Napoleon's own 
administration could be trusted to carry it into 
effect. Accordingly the two years 1810-11 wit- 
ness a series of annexations chiefly on the northern 
sea-coast of Europe, where it was important to 
make the blockade more efficient. But on this 
northern sea-coast lay the chief interests of Eus- 
sia. As therefore in 1805 he had brought Austria 
and Eussia on himself by attacking England, so 
in 1810 he presses his hostility to England to the 
point that it breaks the alliance of Tilsit and leads 
to a Eussian war. 

The year 1810 is occupied with this heighten- 
ing of the Continental system and the annexations 
wliich it involved. That he had long contem- 
plated the annexation of Holland appears from the 
offer of the crown of Spain which he made to 
Louis in 1808, and the language he then used (' La 
Hollande ne saura sortir de ses mines '). He now 
took advantage of the resistance which Louis made 



1G6 Holland and Westphalia. [a.d. isio. 

to his ruinous exactious. Louis was driven to 
abdicate, and the country was organized in nine 
Trench departments (July 9). In August the 
troops of the king of Westphalia were forced to 
make way for French troops at the mouths of the 
Elbe and Weser, and a few months later the 
whole coast between the llliine and the Elbe was 
annexed. At the same time Napoleon began to 
make war on nentral commerce, especially Ameri- 
can, affirming that in order to complete the de- 
struction of English trade it was only necessary 
to prohibit it when it made use of neutral bottoms. 
So thoroughly in earnest was he with his Conti- 
nental system ; and indeed it is beyond dispute 
that great distress and discontent, nay, at last a 
war with the United States, were inflicted upon 
England by this policy. 

But the pressure of it was felt even more on the 
Continent, and the ultimate cause of the fall of 
Napoleon was this, that under the weight of the 
Continental system the alliance of Tilsit broke 
down sooner than the resistance of England. 
That alliance had been seriously weakened by the 
Austrian marriage, and by Napoleon's refusal 
to give the guarantees which Kussia required 
that Poland should never be restored. In- 
deed, Napoleon had seemed to take pleasure 



iETAT. 41.] Alliance of Tilsit dissolved. 1G7 

ia weakening it, but perhaps he had only desired 
to make it less burdensome to himself without 
destroying it. At the end of 1810 measures 
Avere taken on both sides which conveyed the 
impression to Europe that it was practically at 
an end. Alexander refused to adopt Napoleon's 
policy towards neutrals ; Napoleon answered by 
annexing Oldenburg, ruled by a Duke of the Eus- 
sian house ; Alexander rejoined by an ukase (De- 
cember 31st) which modified the restrictions on 
colonial trade and ^heightened those on French 
trade. 

In 1811 the alliance of Tilsit gradually dis- 
solves. Napoleon's Eussian expedition should 
not be regarded as an isolated freak of insane 
pride. He himself regarded it as the unfortu- 
nate effect of a fatality, and he betrayed through- 
out an unwonted reluctance and perplexity. ' The 
war must take place,' he said, ' it lies in the na- 
tufe'of things.' That is, it arose naturally, like 
the other Napoleonic wars, out of the quarrel with 
England. '^XJpon the Continental system he had 
staked everything. He had united all Europe in 
the crusade against England, and no state, least of 
all such a state as Eussia, could withdraw from the 
system without practically joining England. Nev- 
ertheless, we may wonder that, if he felt obliged 



168 Plan of the Russian Expedition, [a.d. isu. 

to make war on Kussia, be should have chosen 
to wage it in the manner he did, by an over- 
whelming invasion. For an ordinary war his re- 
sources were greatly superior to tliose of Russia. 
A campaign on the Lithuanian frontier would no 
doubt have been unfavorable to Alexander, and 
might have forced him to concede the points at 
issue. Napoleon had already experienced in Spain 
the danger of rousing national spirit. It seems, 
however, that this lesson had been lost on him, and 
that he still lived in the ideas which the campaigns 
of 1805, 180G, and 1807 had awakened, when he 
had occupied Vienna and Berlin in succession, 
overthrown the Holy Eoman Empire, and con- 
quered Prussia. He makes a dispute about 
tariffs the ground for the greatest military expe- 
dition known to authentic history ! In this we 
see a stroke of his favorite policy, which consisted 
in taking with great suddenness a measure far 
more decisive than had been expected ; but such 
policy seems here to have been wholly out of 
place. He was perhaps partly driven to it by 
tlie ill success of his diplomacy. War with 
France meant for Russia, sooner or later, alli- 
ance with England, but Napoleon was not able 
to get the help of Turkey, and Sweden joined 
Russia. Turkey had probably heard of the 



.^TAT. 42.] Sweden gained hy Russia. 169 

partition-schemes which were agitated at Tilsit, and 
was also iuHuenced by the threats and promises 
of England. Sweden suffered grievously from 
the Continental system, and Bernadotte, who 
had lately become crown-prince, and who felt 
that he could only secure his position by .pro- 
curing for Sweden some compensation for the 
recent loss of Finland, offered his adhesion to 
the power which would helj) him in acquiring 
Norway. Napoleon declined to rob his ally, Den- 
mark, but Alexander made the promise, and 
Sweden was won. Against Kussia, Sweden, and 
England (a coalition which formed itself but tar- 
dily) Napoleon assembled the forces of France, 
Italy, and Germany, and hoped to win, as usual, 
by the rapid concentration of an overwhelming 
force. Austria and Prussia had suffered so much 
in the former wars of the period, and especially 
in 1805-7, from the insincere and delusive alli- 
ance of Eussia, that they were driven this time to 
side at least nominally with Napoleon. The army 
with which he invaded Russia consisted of some- 
what more than G00,000 men, — the French troops 
mainly commanded by Davoust, Oudinot, and Ney, 
the Italian troops by Prince Eugene, the Poles by 
Poniatowski, the Austrian contingent (33,000 men) 
by Schwarzenberg, the remaining German troops 



170 Magnitude of the Expedition, [a.d. I812. 

by Gouvion St. Cyr, Eeynier, Vandamme, Victor, 
Macdonald (who had the Prussian contingent), 
and Augereau. When we consider that the war 
of the Peninsula was at the same time at its 
height, and that Enghi,nd was now at war with 
the United States, we may form a notion of the 
calamitous condition of the world. 

Eussia had been defeated at Austerlitz and 
Friedland, where it fought far from home for a 
cause in which it was but slightly interested. 
Against an invasion it was as invincible as Spain, 
being strengthened by a profoundly national relig- 
ion and perfect loyalty to the government ; in addi- 
tion it had the strength of its vast extent, its rigorous 
climate, and the half-nomad habits of its people. 
By his prodigious preparations Napoleon provoked 
a new national war under the most difficult cir- 
cumstances, and yet he appears to have desired 
peace, and to have advanced most reluctantly. 
His campaign runs the same course as against Aus- 
tria in 1805 and 1809. There is the successful ad- 
vance, the capture of the fortress (Smolensk), the 
great victory (at Borodino), the entry into the capi- 
tal (Moscow) ; but of all this no result. No nego- 
tiation follows, and Napoleon suddenly finds himself 
helpless, as perhaps he would have done in 1805 
and 1809 had the enemy shown the same firmness. 



^TAT. 42.] Napoleon at Dresden. 171 



§ 4. Battle of Borodino. — Burning of Moscow. — Re- 
treat from Moscoiv. 

On May 16, 1812, he arrived with Marie Louise 
at Dresden, where for the last time he appeared as 
king of kings — the Emperor of Austria, the King 
of Prussia, a multitude of German sovereigns, Met- 
ternich and Hardeuberg paying court to him. On 
the 28th he set out again, and travelled by Glogau, 
Thorn, Dantzic, Konigsberg, Gumbinuen, to Vil- 
kowyski, where he arrived on June 21st. On the 
24th the mass of the army passed the Niemeu at 
Kovno, and on the 28th Napoleon entered Vilna, 
wliich was evacuated by the Eussiaus. Here he 
remained till July 16th. In this long delay, as 
well as in other circumstances, the unwonted 
perplexity of his mind appears. Alexander, who 
has by this time gained greatly in decision of char- 
acter, refuses to negotiate while the enemy stands 
on Eussian territory ; Napoleon, in conversation 
with Balacheff, shows an almost pathetic desire 
for an amicable arrangement. He is embarrassed 
again when a deputation from Warsaw, where a 
diet had met, bids him only say that ' Poland exists, 
since his decree would be for the world equivalent 
to the reality.' This word he declines to say, 
alleging his obligations to Austria. From his 



172 The Poles repulsed. [a.d. I812. 

conversations with Xarbonne (Villemain, Souvenirs) 
we find that he had deliberately considered and 
rejected what we may call the rational mode of 
waerincr war with Eussia, that is, throup;h the res- 
toration of Poland. He admitted that he might 
indemnify Austria, and, if necessary, Prussia else- 
where, but he argued that he could not afford to 
open the floodgates of republicanism : ' Poland 
must be a camp, not a forum.' He had in fact — 
perhaps mainly since his second marriage — come 
to regard himself as the representative of legiti- 
macy against the Revolution. It was thus with 
his eyes open that he preferred the fatal course 
of striking at Moscow. His judgment was evi- 
dently bewildered by the successes of 1805 and 
180G, and he indulges in chimerical imaginations 
of delivering Europe once for all from the danger 
of barbaric invasion. It is to be ol^served that he 
seems invariably to think of the Prussians as 
Tartars ! 

In relating this war we have to beware of 
national exaggerations on both sides. On Na- 
poleon's side it is absurdly said that he was only 
vanquished by winter, whereas it is evident that 
he brought the winter upon himself, first by begin- 
ning so late, then by repeated delays, at Vilna, at 
Vitebsk, and most of all at Moscow. On tlie other 



JET AT. 42.] Russian Strategy. 173 

side, we must not admit absolutely the Russian 
story that he was lured onward by a Parthian 
policy, and that Moscow was sacrificed by a solemn 
universal act of patriotism. Wellington's policy 
of retrogi'ade movements had indeed come into 
fashion among specialists, and an entrenched camp 
was preparing at Drissa on tlie Dwina in imita- 
tion of Torres Vedras. But the nation and the 
army were full of reckless confidence and impa- 
tience for battle ; only their preparations were by 
no means complete. The long retreat to Moscow 
and beyond it was unintentional, and filled the 
Eussians with despair, while at the same time it 
agreed with the views of some of the more enlight- 
ened strategists. 

As usual, Napoleon took the enemy by surprise, 
and brought an overwhelming force to the critical 
point. When he crossed the Niemen the Eussians 
were still thinking of an offensive war, and ru- 
mors had also been spread that he would enter 
Volhynia. Hence their force was divided into 
three armies : one, commanded by the Livonian 
Barclay de Tolly, had its headquarters at Vilna ; a 
second, under Prince Bagration, was further south 
at Volkowysk ; the third, under Tormaseff, was in 
Volhynia. But the total of these armies scarcely 
amounted to 200,000 men, and that of Barclay de 



174 The Population called out. [a.d. I812. 

Tolly opposed little more than 100,000 to the main 
body of Napoleon's host, which amounted nearly 
to 300,000. Hence it evacuates Vilna and retires 
by Svenziany to the camp at Drissa. Barclay 
arrives at Drissa on July 9th, and here for the 
hrst time the emperor and the generals seem to 
realize the extent of the danger. Alexander issues 
an ukase calling out the population in the propor- 
tion of five to every hundred males, and hurries to 
Moscow, and thence to St. Petersburg, in order to 
rouse the national enthusiasm. The Drissa camp 
is also perceived to be untenable. It had been in- 
tended to screen St. Petersburg, and Napoleon is 
seen to look rather in the direction of Moscow. 
Barclay retires to Vitebsk, but is obliged, in order 
to effect his junction with Bagration, to retreat still 
further, and Napoleon enters Vitebsk on the 28th, 
The road to Moscow passes between the Dwiua, 
which flows northward, and the Dnieper, which 
flows southward, Vitebslc on the one river and 
Smolensk on the other, forming, as it were, the two 
doorposts. We expect to find Napoleon at this 
point cutting the hostile armies in two, and com- 
pelling that of Bagration to surrender ; he has a 
great superiority of numbers, and he might have 
had the advantage of a friendly population. But 
his host seems unmanageable, and the people are 



^TAT. 4.1.] Capture of Smolensk, 175 

estranged by tlie rapacity and cruelty to which it 
is driven by insufficient supplies. Barclay and 
Bagration effect their junction at Smolensk on 
August 3, and now have a compact army of at least 
120,000 men. They evacuate Smolensk also on 
the IStli, but only after an obstinate defence, 
which left Napoleon master of nothing but a burn- 
ing ruin. 

Both at Vitebsk and Smolensk he betrayed the 
extreme embarrassment of his mind. Should he 
go into winter quarters ? should he press forward 
to Moscow ? It was a choice of desperate courses. 
His army was dwindling away ; he had forfeited the 
support of the Poles ; Germany was full of discon- 
tent; and yet a large part of his army was Polish 
or German ; how could he delay ? And yet if he 
advanced, since August was already running out, 
he must encounter the Eussian winter. He deter- 
mined to advance, relying on the overwhelming 
effect that would be produced hj the occupation of 
Moscow. He would win, as after Austerlitz and 
Friedland, through the feebleness and fickleness 
of Alexander. 

Meanwhile his unresisted progress, and the aban- 
donment by Barclay of one position after another, 
created the greatest consternation among the Eus- 
sians, as well they might. Barclay was a foreigner, 



176 Battle of Borodino. [a.d. I812. 

and might well seem another Melas or Mack. A 
cry arose for his dismissal, to which the Czar re- 
sponded by putting old Kutusoff, who was at 
least a Eussian, at the head of all his armies. 
This change necessarily brought on a great battle, 
which took place on September 7, near the village 
of Borodino. More than 100,000 men with about 
six hundred pieces of artillery were engaged on 
each side. It ended in a victory, but an almost 
fruitless victory, for the French. They lost per- 
haps 30,000 men, including Generals Montbrun 
and Caulaincourt, the Eussians nearly 50,000, in- 
cluding Prince Bagration. Here again Napoleon 
displayed unwonted indecision. He refused to 
let loose his guard, consisting of 20,000 fresh 
troops, who might apparently have effected the 
complete dissolution of the hostile army, and ma- 
terially altered the whole sequel of the campaign. 
He said, 'At 800 leagues from Paris one must 
not risk one's last reserve.' 

This battle, the greatest after Leipsic of all the 
jSTapoleonic battles, was followed by the occupa- 
tion of Moscow on September 14, which, to Napo- 
leon's great disappointment, was found almost 
entirely empty. After a council of war Kutusoff 
had taken the resolution to abandon the old 
capital, the loss of which was held not to be so 



-STAT. 43.] Burning of Moscow. 177 

irreparable as the loss of the army. But, as with 
Okl-Russiau craft he had announced Borodino to 
the Czar as a victory, the sensation produced upon 
the Eussian public by the fall of Moscow was 
all the more overwhelming. Nor did the next oc- 
currence, which immediately followed, at first bring 
any relief Fires broke out in Moscow on the 
night after Napoleon's entrance ; on the next night, 
by whicli time he was quartered in the Kremlin, 
the greater part of the city was in flames, and on 
the day following he was forced by the progress 
of the conflagration to evacuate the Kremlin again. 
But on the first intelligence of this catastrophe 
the destruction of Moscow was attributed in Rus- 
sia to the French themselves, and was not by any 
means regarded as a crushing blow dealt at Napo- 
leon by Russian patriotism. 

It is indeed not clear that this event had any 
decisive influence upon the result of the war. 
Nor does it seem to have been the deliberate work 
of the patriotism of Moscow. The beginner of it 
was one man, Count Rostopchiu, governor of Mos- 
cow, who is shown by many public utterances to 
have brooded for some time over the thought, and 
is proved to have made preparations for carrying 
it into effect before leaving the town. It is, how- 
ever, supposed that what was begun by him was 
12 



178 Constancy of Alexander. [a.d. I812. 

completed by a rabble which had no object but 
plunder, and partly by French soldiers. The im- 
mediate effect of it was to deepen the alarm of 
the Eussians, and, when this feeling passed away, 
to deepen their hatred of the French. Now came 
the critical moment. Would Alexander negotiate ? 
That is, would he listen to certain timid courtiers 
about him such as Komanzoff, or would he be in- 
spired by the partiotic ardor of his people and 
lean on his nobler counsellors, the German patriot 
Stein or Sir Eobert Wilson ? The pressure for a 
moment was great. We can imagine that had the 
Kussian army been dissolved at Borodino, it might 
have been irresistible. But he stood firm ; he re- 
fused to negotiate ; and Napoleon suddenly found 
that he had before him, not the simple problem 
he had soh-ed so often in earlier life, but the insol- 
uble puzzle he had first encountered in Spain. 
His failures in Egyj^t and in Spain had been more 
or less disguised. He was now in danger of a 
failure which could not be concealed, and on a far 
larger scale ; but had he retreated forthwith and 
wintered in Vilna, where he might have arrived 
early in November, the conquest of Eussia might 
have seemed only to be postponed for a year. In- 
stead of this he delayed five weeks in ]\Ioscow, 
and then complained of the Eussian winter ! 



^TAT. 43.] Retreat from Moscoiv. 179 

After planniug a demonstration on St. Petersburg, 
\veighing Darn's scheme of wintering in Moscow 
(which he called ' uu conseil de lion '), and wait- 
ing in vain for the Czar's submission, he set out 
on October 20, after blowing up the Kremlin. He 
marched southward to Kaluga, hoping to make 
his way through a richer and unexhausted country. 
But while his forces had dwindled the Eussian 
had increased. Peace with Sweden had released 
a Eussian force in Finland; peace with Turkey 
released the army of the Danube ; meanwhile 
levies were proceeding through the whole empire. 
Napoleon's plan was frustrated by a check he 
received at Malojaroslavetz, and he had to turn 
northward again and return as he had come. He 
reached Smolensk on November 9, when he might 
have been at Vilna. He marched by Orcza to the 
Berezina, which he struck near Borisoff. Here 
Tchitchagoff at the head of the Danube army con- 
fronted him, and two other Eussian armies were 
approaching. Napoleon on his side was joined by 
what remained of the corps of Oudinot and Victor, 
who had held the line of the Dwina. But what 
was the army of Napoleon which was thus rein- 
forced ? 

In July it had consisted of more than 250,000 
men. It had suffered no decisive defeat, and yet 



180 Destruction of the Army. [a.d. isis. 

it amounted now only to 12,000 ; in the retreat 
from Moscow alone about 90,000 had been lost. 
The force which now joined it amounted to 18,000, 
and Napoleon's star had still influence enough to 
enable him to make his way across the Berezina, 
and so escape total ruin and captivity. But De- 
cember came on, and the cold was more terrible 
than ever. On the evening of December 6th a 
miserable throng, like a crowd of beggars, tottered 
into Vilna. 

The corps of Macdonald, Eeynier, and Scliwar- 
zenberg (among whom were included the Austrian 
and Prussian contingents) had escaped destruction, 
having been posted partly on the Polish frontier, 
partly in the Baltic provinces. For these we may 
deduct 100,000 from the total force ; it then ap- 
pears that half a million had perished or disap- 
peared. They had perished not by unexpected 
cold ; ' the cold had but finished the work of dis- 
solution and death almost accomplished by the 
enemy, by hardship, and especially by hunger ' 
(Charras) ; nor is cold unusual in Eussia in No- 
vember ! Napoleon's error was one which may be 
traced as clearly in the campaigns of 1805 and 
1806, the error of making no provision whatever 
for the case of ill-success or even success less than 
complete. 



^TAT. 4.3.] Imperialism. 181 

It was now the twentieth year that Europe was 
tearing itself to pieces. For some years past the 
pretence of revolutionary principles had been given 
up. There was now no pretext for war except the 
so-called maritime tyranny of England ; but yet the 
magnitude of wars had increased beyond all meas- 
urement. The campaign of 1812 left everything^ 
in civilized history far behind it. All the abuses 
of the old monarchy and all the atrocities of the 
Eevolution put together were as nothing compared 
to this new plague, bred between the Eevolution 
and the old monarcliy, having the violence of the 
one and the vainglory of the other, with a system- 
atic professional destructiveness peculiar to im- 
perialism superadded. -- --'' 



182 Niqjoh'on's Position. [a.d. isis. 



CHAPTER VI. 

FALL OF NAPOLEON. 

§ 1. TFcrrs of 1813-14. — War tvith Jiussia and 
Prussia. — lielations to Austria. 

But M'hat M-as Napoleon's position ! Any 
government but the strongest would have sunk 
under such a blow, but Napoleon's government 
was the strongest, and at its strongest moment. 
Opposition had long been dead; public opinion 
was paralyzed ; no immediate rising was to be 
feared. Should he then simply take the les- 
son home, and make peace with Alexander? 
Impossible; he must efface the disaster l^y new 
triumphs. But, as this was evident to all, Alex- 
ander could not but perceive that he must 
not lose a inoment, but must hasten forward 
and rouse Germany, before Napoleon should have 
had time to levy a new army. 1813 must be 
filled with a war in Germany, as 1812 with 
the war in Russia. 



^TAT. 43.J Return of Napoleon. 183 

Napoledn abandoned the wreck of his army 
at Sniorgoni on December 5 (as lie had left his 
Egyptian army thirteen years before), travelling 
in a carriage placed npon a sledge, and accom- 
panied by Caulaiiicourt and Duroc. He had an 
interview with Marct outside Vilna, and then 
travelled to Warsaw, where he saw his ambassador 
De Pradt, who has left an account of his con- 
fused talk. Here, as in the famous 29th bulletin, 
published a little later, we observe that he consoles 
liimself iov the loss of his army by reflecting 
that his own health was never better — he kept 
on repeating this. Then he said, ' From the 
sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step ; ' 
for the retreat from Moscow strikes him as 
ridiculous ! From Warsaw he passed to Dresden, 
where he saw his ally the King of Saxony, 
and wrote letters to the Emperor of Austria 
and to the King of Prussia. He then made his 
way by Erfurt and Mainz to Paris, where he 
arrived on December 18th. The bulletin had 
appeared two days before. 

He had said to De Pradt that he intended 
to raise 300,000 men and appear on the Niemen 
again in the spring. The first part of this 
intention he fuUilled, for in April he reappeared 
in the field with 300,000 men ; but the campaign 



184 Rising of Prussia. [a.d. I8i3. 

was fought not on the line of the Niemen, nor 
of the Vistula, nor of the Oder, and he had to 
fiaht a battle before he could even reach the 
Elbe. For a great event took place less than 
a fortnight after his arrival in Paris, the defec- 
tion of the Prussian contingent under York from 
the grand army ; this event led to the rising 
of Prussia against Napoleon. York's convention 
with the Ptussians is dated December 30th. On 
January 22. 1813, Stein appeared at Konigsberg 
and procured the assembling of the estates of 
East Prussia, in which assembly the Prussian 
landwehr was set on foot. On February 27th he 
concluded for the Czar the treaty of Kaliscli with 
Prussia, by which the old Coalition of 1806 may 
be said to have been revived. Prussia now rushed 
to arms in a wholly new spirit, emulating Spain 
and Eussia in devotion, and adding to devotion 
an intelligence peculiar to herself At the same 
time measures were taken tb break up the Confed- 
eration of the PJiine. Tettenborn cleared the 
French out of the northern departments in March ; 
Saxony too passed into the hands of the allies, 
and it was hoped that the king himself might 
be induced to follow the example of the King of 
Prussia. But April came, and Napoleon took 
the field again. 



;etat. 43.] Napoleon at Mainz. 185 

By rapidity and energy lie was still able to take 
the offensive. Though Eussia and Prussia were 
now as Spain, yet the process of calling out and 
drilling their population was only just begun, and 
it proceeded slowly. Their united available force 
at the opening of the campaign scarcely exceeded 
100,000 men. Austria and the middle states did 
not abandon Napoleon. With tact and with ju- 
dicious concession he might yet retrieve his posi- 
tion ; perhaps no one as yet had begun to think 
of his fall. He left St. Cloud for Mainz on April 
15th. His object was Saxony, where Dresden, the 
scene of his last display of omnipotence less than 
a year ago, was now the residence of the Czar and 
the King of Prussia united against him. Eugene 
was maintaining himself on the lower Saale with 
an army of about 70,000 men, and Napoleon was 
to march by way of Erfurt to join him. Between 
Erfurt, Bamberg, and Mainz he had by this time 
about 150,000 men, troops indeed without disci- 
pline and with imperfect drill, youths, the last 
hope of France, but well ofticered and not want- 
ing in the enthusiasm which his name still in- 
spired. There was, however, a serious deficiency 
of cavalry. Meanwhile Davoust, stationed on 
the Weser with 30,000 men, was holding down 
the insurrection of North Germany. 






186 Napoleon's strange Reverse. [a.d. isis. 

The war which now commenced ended not only 
to the disadvantage of Napoleon, but, unlike any 
former war, it ended in a complete defeat of France, 
nay, in the conquest of France, an event to which 
nothing parallel had been seen in modern Europe, 
Nor was this result attained by any political or 
revolutionary means, e.g., by exciting a republican 
or Bourbon party against Napoleon's authority, but 
by sheer military superiority. The great conqueror 
was in his turn completely conquered. 

This stransre reverse seems traceable to two 

O 

principal causes. 

(1) He had lost in Eussia the unparalleled 
army, which had been bequeathed to him by the 
Eevolution, and which had been the instrument 
of his military achievements. 

(2) He had succeeded in uniting against him- 
self Austria, Eussia, and Prussia. Upon the in- 
curable mutual distrust of these three Powers the 
greatness of France during the whole period had 
been based. This had driven Prussia from the 
first coalition, and held her aloof from tlie sec- 
ond and third. Moreover, the treacherous policy 
initiated by Catharine at tlie outset had passed to 
Alexander, and had been blended in him with char- 
acteristic frivolity. He had ruined Austria in 1805 
and Prussia in 1806 by this mixture of frivolity 



^TAT. 43] Tloo Principal Causes. 187 

and treachery. In 1807 he had gone openly over 
to the enemy, and between 1807 and 1812 the Ger- 
man Powers had been lield in subjection as much 
by him as by Napoleon. Napoleon's insensate 
blindness had flung away this strong support, and 
had achieved what might have seemed impossible 
— had united the three Powers in a cordial alli- 
ance. In place of the old bitterness towards Prus- 
sia there now reigned in Austria the conviction, 
which Metternich was fond of expressing, that 
the restoration of Prussia was a vital Austrian 
interest, and it had become equally clear to Eus- 
sia that the restoration of Austria and Prussia was 
necessary to her. 

The war, though technically one, is really three 
distinct wai's. There is first the war witli Russia 
and Prussia, which occupies the month of May and 
is concluded by an armistice on June 4th. There 
is next a war with Paissia, Prussia, and Austria, 
which l)egins in August and is practically termi- 
nated in October by the expulsion of Napoleon 
from Germany. Thirdly, there is an invasion of 
France by the same allied powers. This began 
in January, 1814, and ended in April with the 
fall of Naj)olcon. 

In the first of these wars Napoleon maintained 
on the whole his old superiority. It has excited 



188 Battle of Lilizen. [ad. 1813. 

needless admiration that with his raw levies he 
should still liave been able to win victories, since 
of his two enemies liussia had suffered as much as 
himself in 1812, and Prussia's army was at the be- 
ginning of the year actually to make. In the first 
days of ]\Iay he advanced down the valley of the 
Saale, making for Leipsic by Naumburg, Weis- 
senfels, and Liitzen. On the 2d Avas fought 
the battle commonly called from Liitzen, though 
the Germans usually name it from tlie village 
of Gross-GcJr.schen. By tliis battle, in which the 
great military refornier of I'russia, Scharnhorst, 
received tlie wound of which he died soon after, 
the allies were forced to retreat across the Elbe, 
and Dresden was restored to the King of Saxony. 
The Trussians attribute their ill-success partly to 
the insulTiciency of tlie Russian commander Witt- 
genstein, under whom they fought. Napoleon soon 
pursued tlie allies across the Elbe, and another bat- 
tle was fought on May 20 and 21 at Bautzen on 
the Spree. Here again Napoleon remained mas- 
ter of the field, thougli his loss seems to have been 
considerably greater than that of the enemy. The 
allies retired into Silesia, and a pause took place, 
which led to the armistice of Poischwitz, signed 
on June 4th. During this armistice Napoleon 
formed the resolution which led to his downfall. 



iETAT. 43.] Battle of Bautzen. 189 

He might seem now to liave almost retrieved 
his losses. If he could not revive the great army 
of the Ecvolution, which lay buried (or unburied) 
in Russia, he had reasserted the ascendency of 
France. Politically he had suffered but one sub- 
stantial loss, in the rebellion of Prussia. The 
blows of Liitzen and Bautzen had arrested the 
movement which threatened to dissolve the Con- 
federation of tlie Rhine and to unite all Germany 
against him. They had also shaken the alliance 
of Prussia and Russia. Between the generals of 
the two armies there reigned much jealousy; the 
old question, raised after Austerlitz and Priedland, 
was beginning to be asked again by the Russians, 
Why should they fight for others ? 

At Tilsit Napoleon had dissolved the Coalition 
by forming as it were a partnership with Russia. 
It might seem possible now to form a similar part- 
nership with Austria. This course had indeed 
been entered upon at the marriage of the arch- 
duchess. Napoleon seems to have taken the alli- 
ance seriously. He conceived it as the final 
suppression of tlie Revolution, as a complete ad- 
hesion on his own part to conservatism. The 
language of the bulletins at this time is ultra- 
conservative. Thus tlie enemy is described as 
' preaching anarchy and insurrection,' Stein is 



190 Relations ivith Austria, [a.d. 1813, 

charged with ' rousing the rabble against the 
proprietors.' But though he had borrowed the 
Austrian tone, lie had not yet enlisted Austrian 
interests on his side. It was evidently in his 
power to confer on Austria the greatest advan- 
tages, and, as it were, to divide his power with 
her. Less than this he could not offer, since the 
losses of France and Russia had given to Austria 
a decisive weight, but it might seem that he could 
offer it without much humiliation, as the alliance 
with Austria had subsisted since 1810 and had 
been cemented by marriage. If he did not thus 
win Austria, he might expect her to adhere to the 
other side, for in such a crisis neutrality was out 
of the question. Could Napoleon then hope to 
overcome a quadruple alliance of England, Rus- 
sia, Prussia, and Austria ? Such a hope was not 
justified by the victories of Liitzen and Bautzen. 
The force of Prussia increased every day, and the 
Spanish enthusiasm with which her new army 
fought had been displayed even on those fields; 
the force of Austria had been impaired by no 
Russian campaign ; while France was evidently 
near the end of lier resources. The legerdemain 
by which, in 1800, 1805, 1806, Napoleon had 
made conquests was now worn out; his blows 
were no longer followed by abject submission 



^TAT. 43.] Concessions to Austria necessary. 191 

and surrender; he was not even able, for want 
of cavalry, to make his victories decisive. Thus 
ample concessions to Austria were indispen- 
sable; but, these assumed, his position might 
seem hopeful. 

He took the momentous resolution to make no 
such concessions, saw Austria join the Coalition, 
and after a campaign of two months found his 
army driven in tumultuous ruin across the Rhine. 
This step is the counterpart of Tilsit, and destroyed 
the work of Tilsit. To understand it we must in 
the first place weigh his own w'ords, spoken to 
Schwarzenberg : ' My situation is difficult ; I should 
ruin myself if I concluded a dishonorable peace. 
An old government, where the ties between sover- 
eign and people are old, may sign burdensome con- 
ditions, when the pressure of circumstances requires 
it. But I am new ; I must heed opinion mofSp 
for I need it. Were such a peace announced, at '1^- j^^"*! 

first, no doubt, we should hear nothing but jubila- 
tion ; but soon would follow loud criticism on the 
Government. I should lose tlie respect, and with 
that the confidence, of my people, for the French- 
man has a lively imagination ; he loves glory and 
excitement ; he is sensitive. Do you know what 
was tlie first cause of the fall of the Bourbons ? 
It dates from Rossbach.' This view is evidently 



1 4^' 






192 Napoleons View. '^ [a.d. isis. 



sound, but it does not explain why he did not at 
least try his utmost by bribes and promises to win 
Austria to his interest. aSTevertheless he seems 
not to have been attracted by this plan, though it 
was open to him for several months, and though 
the clamor for peace which his own army and his 
own marshals raised compelled him to profess to 
take it into consideration. lie continued delib- 
erately to contemplate in preference a war against 
Eussia, Prussia, and Austria united, and refrarded 
the armistice simply as a delay, which would en- 
able him to bring up new forces. Metternich has 
left us an account of the interview, lastinfj ten 
hours, which he had with Napoleon on June 28, 
in the Marcolini palace at Dresden. It reveals to 
us Napoleon's contempt for a power he has so often 
defeated, his inability to believe that Austria can 
still have spirit to resist; at the same time we be- 
come aware that he believes himself to be neces- 
sary to the Austrian emperor, as being the bulwark 
of all thrones and of monarchy itself against the 
Eevolution. Here too we meet with the famous 
dramatic passage, which we can hardly suppose to 
have been invented by Metternich, where Napo- 
leon, on being told that his troops were ' not sol- 
diers, but children,' answered, turning pale — 'You 
are no soldier ; you do not know what passes in a 



-ETAT. 43.] Conversation loith Metternich. 193 

soldier's mind ; I grew up in the field, and a man 
like me troubles himself little about the life of a 
million of men ' (the actual expression he used, 
adds Metternich, cannot be reported), — and then 
flung his hat into a corner of the room. That this 
was a true description of his way of tliinking had 
become visible to most since the Eussian catas- 
trophe, and the audacious frankness with which 
he blurts it out is quite in his characteristic 
manner. 

We cannot but feel how difficult it is to follow 
tlie movements of a mind which has wandered into 
such strange latitudes. His judgment, too, which 
was naturally most correct, must have been bewil- 
dered by the strangeness of his career. He must 
have formed the habit of counting upon sudden 
interventions of fortune ; nay, he must have been 
well aware that he had risen so high not by fol- 
lowing probabilities, but by running enormous 
risks. 

But it is by no means certain, after all, that 
Austria was to be bought or bribed. Her course, 
so far as we can trace it, was firm and honorable ; 
it seems that the sacrifice of the Archduchess in 
1809 ou'dit not to be regarded as Austria's final 
surrender of self-respect. She cj^uietly withdraws 
her auxiliary corps from the French army, and 
13 



|V(Mhrt|vs ho wrMiUI h;v\o grtuunl uwioh uu>\v — Tor 

oh«?^Hl u« iu\u\<\UA(o ^HNVoo {U this (>ruHV 

A ^NNUjiWA^t tuot rtl Tn^iiivv* \u Uio wvu"?!^^ of July. 

i\\«ko >vnv>u?4 |\<\y\\^^5^ llo |v\\vl nv> jutouiivm (v» 

s^i^lxsl of j».i\ jvnuvnjwl iA\u\htiov,$^ v^O IVrtitiou of 
tho IHiolvv' of Wax'^uv Ivnwon Avi^ni^K lV»t<s:- 
{uul \\U5^>^\;» ; \^*^> \x\t(.itu(.\on (v> Tnu^s^i;* of Ur... 
««vl ilss ix'TiUxMy; \^i^^ oiv^iou of tho U^vrirtU ^vrvn- 
UhHvs to Aux'^tm; ^-i^ t\^t\^v«t\o« to imio^vtulouvv 
v>f H<u\\b«vvj 5U\vl LuKvkv «txvi \\^«n\Mjivi«out of 
tho >VA1 M\ht<u\Y UiYi$.ioi\ : t^o'i vU?»^\h5t.i\xu t\f vho 
l\xutV\Un^uivx« of tho Ivhiuoi <^l>> vxHvustntotiow 
of l\u?^i;» ou tho «!x\ilo vNf l{>iVv On tuuin^;;;,; 
of Au^^ist h^U tho a»uu?it.uv \>"As vUvhuwl ;x^ 

IV «t «« OWiiv «U\\l tho \KVU» of Nrt\\>UvU \V;V$ 

«»c>;v\t\l. It MA* A *t.>>!»\\^>iv» vlool*kx»x ou h\s jvuiv 
IhU ^y^^tj^iv^ h.o juvl^i^l n; ' ; l^o 1\HvI uo 

ohvMvv but IvtNxxHvn n.iu ar... ...,.., a iu^wss^.Mo 

viotvxrv ' 



«TAr. 44,| /'oniMtrn of f/ui Arrnirji. J 95 



5 2. W'lr iiillli. iLnaRyi., I'runni.n, iiml, Annlri'i. 

KnropM /lovv plijn;4(;« a^ain i/if,'; », «f,ru;/!^|c, at! 
»l(!H|»«;r(if,<i jiii'l UA (Icwtnict/iv! ».« Mi;i.t, of' \''\\'^, 
Moro ♦■.vidfMiMy <;v<.fi Mifui in l''l^ m Mjij/mI'^oh 
r>-fipon;iil)lr', \i,r l-liii ruin ol all 'ivilizafJoti. M'-, 
fiurinol, any l')n;7«!r f»()<;ak ♦;vc,;i of Ui<; lil/nriy o( U)<5 
Hfja?!, I'M- Ik- if< r(;rr;';<l lii/rrK;!!' I,'» ;i.'lni/(, l,li;il, \.\\i-, 
^/'ontinnnUil ay^l/om i« *U;iv\, and y<!l/ rfTrnw!,4 to «tn- 
nrn(l<;r tliat, a.',f;<!n'l>;nf^y for wfiif;li \,\u; C*ont,(n<;ni?(,l 
wy^Uifn lia«l iiil alonw \)CMu \,\m \)Vt:U'.7.\,. f/if'af.naU''! 
Vmufc, liow«;v<;r, lia^ l>y Ifii?) \,\\w. rnrni;-.!)*;'! fnor*j 
than 400,000 rn«:n to \i<;\\:\\ in a. r;ont«!f5t wliofj 
tli<?r»; nii;/lit Ixj f;lia,nf;f;), h(jt ''onM !;»; no ]fri>\ri\})\\'\- 
iu;-A, of victory. Mi", ]u•^^^\-(\\\',\.^■^.^•.v^ arf) now at 
J)r«;H'l<:n, .'i.n'l lii;i ;i,rinii;;i ar*; /'i,rran;y;'l alon;^ tli'j 
wliolfj »;onri'! of (li<; Kll;«-. fron; liofxirnia to il^, 
nionlJi. Tlii-i (»of'.)tion fiaw l;>;«;n wni\i;w\\u.\, v/«;al<- 
f.wA \>y tli») a(|li«;;!ion of An^fria U> tfif; f/oalitif>n, 
for An^ito;), ni-'iJ',:'.';''. Ii'-,r tioop', on tJic, nortJi v/<;;',t i)\ 
Ilolx'fnia, tlir<;!it,<;ninj.^ I>r<:fi'l';n u.u'\ N'a(»o)r;on'K 
(;ornniiinif;ation?4 from tli»5 lf;ft ••,j(J<; of tf)<; I'',ll;f;. 
'I'll*; fon;<; of tli<; alli«;;t ''aj>proaclii»ij^ .000,000 rn'-.n; 
ConniHtfJ of tlir<;»; yrcMl mi mi ■:■•,, of v/l»if;li tic; fir^jt, 
prin';iji;i,lly Aiiwtriafi, ari'l coni;naf»f|f,'l hy \'nnrAi 
H(;liwar/,<;nh<;r(^, in Htationf.fl on tJi^j I'/^cr in liolifj- 
irjitt ; tlifc (K/VfjnjignH am )inrti. The ol<l l'ni»w>- 



196 The Commanders. [ad. 1813. 

Eussian army, wliich had made tlie convention of 
Poischwitz, is still in Silesia. Tt contains more 
]iussians than Prussians, bnt a Prussian officer is 
now pnt at the head of it. "JMiis is Bliicher, the 
dashing general of hnssars, now an old man of 
seventy years ; on his staff are some of the lead- 
ing theorists and enthusiasts of the new Prussian 
army, such as Gneisenau. But the bulk of the 
Prussian force is stationed in the Mark of Bran- 
denburg. In this linal muster of the armies of 
]<^uro])c we see that the moral forces have passed 
over from Fninee to the allies. In the 1^'rench 
camp there reigns weariness and desire for peace, 
among the Prussians and llussians heroic ardor 
and devotion. P>ut the old mismanagement reap- 
pears on the side of the allies. In the Bohemian 
camp Schwarzenberg's authority was almost an- 
nulled by the presence of the sovereigns ; in Sile- 
sia the heroic Prussian general is in connnand 
of an army mainly Ivussian. l)ut in the Mark 
perhaps the greatest blunder was made, for here 
the main Prussian force was put under the orders 
of the Crown Prince of Sweden, the Frenchman 
Bernadotte, wholly alien to the German cause, and 
bent upon propitiating French public opinion with 
a view to the succession of Napoleon. Bernadotte 
is not the only member of the old republican 



-ETAT. 44.] Battle of the Katzbach. 107 

opposition who is seen in the allied camp, now that 
Napoleon's fall begins to he thought of as possi- 
ble. Moreau, the man who helped in 1799 to 
found the consulate, desiring prol)ably to see 
France ruled by a series of Washingtons, each 
holding office for a .short term, appears in the Aus- 
trian camp. If Napoleon was to be dethroned, 
who had better right to succeed him ? 

The campaign opens with a blow aimed at 
Berlin, wliere perhaps Napoleon wished to extin- 
guish the popular insurrection at its source. Ou- 
dinot marches on it from Baruth, and is supported 
by a force from Magdeburg ; Davoust sends an- 
other corps from ITamburg. Bernadotte proposes 
to retire and sacrifice Berlin, but in spite of him 
Billow fights on August 23 the battle of Gross- 
beeren, within a few miles of the capital. Here 
first tlie laudwehr distinguished itself, and Berlin 
was saved. The attack from Magdeburg was 
defeated by Hirschfeld at Hagelberg on the 27th. 
IMeanwhile Napoleon himself, at the head of 
150,000 men, had marched against Bliicher on the 
Katzbach. Bliicher retired before him, and he 
was compelled to return to the defence of Dresden, 
but he left Macdonald with perhaps 50,000 or 
60,000 men to hold Bliicher in check. Almost 
immediately after his departure (August 26) Mac- 



198 Four Defeats and One Victory, [a.d. 1813. 

clonald was defeated by BliicLer iu tlic liattle of 
the Katzbacli. Thus the campaign began with two 
l*russian victories. But when llie great army of 
Bohemia moved upon Dresden, Napoleon showed 
liis okl superiority. On August 27 he inflicted on 
it a terrible defeat. Here Morean, the liero of 
ITohenlinden, was mortally wounded by a cannon- 
ball. It seemed for a moment likely that this 
battle, followed uj) with Napoleon's overwhelming 
rapidity, would decide the campaign. He pre- 
jiared to cut off his enemy's retreat into Bohemia. 
]>ut tlie news of CJrossbeeren and Katzbach ar- 
rived ; Napoleon is also said to have l)ecn attacked 
by illness ; he altered his plan in the moment of 
execution. The grand stroke of tlie cam])aign 
I'ailed, and, instead of cutting ofl' the retreat of the 
grand arnjy, Vandannne was taken prisoner with 
10,000 men at Kulm after a battle in Avhich he 
had lost half that number (August 30). It was 
evident that the times of Marengo and .Austerlitz 
were over. Napoleon's ability and authority M^ere 
as great as ever ; he controlled larger armies ; he 
opl)osed a Coalition wluch was as unwieldy as 
former Coalitions ; and yet he had suffered four 
defeats in a single week and had won but one vic- 
tory. Within another week he suffered another 
blow. Ney, making a new advance on Berlin, was 



iETAT. 44.] Battle of Dennewitz. 199 

defeated with great loss at Dennewitz by the Prus- 
sians under Billow (September 6). 

Here then ends Napoleon's ascendency ; hence- 
forth he fights in self-defence or in despair. Yet 
the massacre was to continue with unabated fury 
for nearly two months longer. He spent the 
greater part of September in restless marches from 
Dresden, now into Silesia, now into Bohemia, by 
which he wore out his strengtli without winning 
any substantial advantage. Towards the end of 
the month a new phase of the war begins. From 
the beginning the allies had given each other ren- 
dezvous in the plain of Leipsic. Hitherto Napo- 
leon had held the line of the Elbe, and had presented 
a single mass to the three separate armies of tlie 
Coalition. Now that his collapse begins to be visi- 
ble, commences the converging advance on Leipsic. 
The Silesian army crossed the Elbe at AVartenburg 
on October 3, and on the next days the northern 
army also crossed at several points. At the same 
moment the Confederation of the Tlhiue began 
rapidly to dissolve. A troop of Cossacks under 
Czernicheff upset the kingdom of Westphalia (Oc- 
tober 1). Bavaria abandoned Napoleon, and con- 
cluded the treaty of Itied with Austria (October 
8). But for form's sake — we may almost say — 
a final massacre was still necessary. It took place 



200 Battle of Lrijifiic. [a.d. I813. 

on a satisfactory scale between October 14 and 19, 
aud ended in the decisive defeat of Napoleon and 
the capture of Lcipsic. Perhaps nearly half a mil- 
lion of men were engaged in these final battles. 
It is reckoned tliat in tlie last three days the 
Prussians lost sixteen, the Pussians twenty-one, 
and the Austriaiis fourteen thousand men — total, 
fifty-one thousand. Napoleon left twenty-three 
thousand behind him in the hospitals, and fifteen 
thousand prisoners ; his dead may have been 
fifteen thousand. He lost also three hundred 
pieces of artillery. The sufTerings of the wounded 
almost exceed anything told of the rolrc>at from 
Moscow. It is a misfortune that the victors al- 
lowed him to cross tlie Ehine in safety ; had they 
pressed the pm-suit vigorously, helped as they now 
were by the I^avarians, they might have brought 
his career to an end at this j)oint. But for such a 
decisive measure perhaps even their political views 
were not yet ripe. However, as at the Berezina 
iu 1812, so noAv, he had to clear his road by an- 
otlicr battle. The Bavarians under Wredc met him 
at llanau, eager to earn some merit with the vic- 
torious Coalition; hut he broke his way through 
them (October 30, 31), and arrived at Frankfort. 
On November 1, 2, be carried tbe remains of his 
army, some 70,000 men, across the Rhine at JMainz. 



^TAT. 44.] Liberation of Germany. 201 



§ 3. Invasion of France by the Allies. — Napoleon 
abdicates. 

The work of eight years was undone ; Napoleon 
was thrown back to the position he liad occupied 
at the rupture of the peace of Amiens. The Eus- 
sian disaster had cancelled Friedland ; Leipsic had 
cancelled Austerlitz. But could Napoleon consent 
to humble himself? If he could not make conces- 
sions in the summer, still less could he do so now. 
Could he return and reign quietly at Paris, a de- 
feated general, his reputation crushed by the two 
greatest disasters of history ? At least he might 
by abdicating have spared France, already mortally 
exhausted, the burden of another war. It is among 
the most unpardonable even of his crimes to have 
dragged his unhappy country through yet another 
period of massacre, though nothing that could even 
appear to l)e a national interest was at stake. In 
November advances were made to him by the 
allies, in which peace was proposed on the basis 
of the ' natural frontiers.' This would have secured 
to France the main fruits of the First Eevolution- 
ary War, that is, Belgium, the Left Bank, Savoy, 
and Nice. Such terms seem generous when we 
consider the prostration of France, and the over- 



202 Manifesto of the Allies. [a.d. 1813. 

whelming superiority of the allies. But though 
the Prussian war-party loudly protested against 
them, and maintained the necessity of weakening 
France so as to render her harmless, Austria fa- 
vored them, being jealous alike of Prussia and of 
the spirit of liberty which the war was rousing 
in the German population. A little compliance on 
the part of Napoleon might at this moment have 
made the general desire for peace irresistible. 
But he showed no such disposition. He first 
evaded the proposal, and then, too late, accepted it 
with suspicious qualifications. After having been 
decimated, France must now be invaded aiid sub- 
jugated, for him. 

On December 1 the allies issued their manifesto 
from Frankfort, in Mdiich they declare themselves 
at war not with France but with Napoleon (an imi- 
tation of the Revolutionary principle ' Peace with 
peoples, war with Governments ' ), and the invasion 
followed with almost Napoleonic rapidity. The 
three armies remain separate as they had been in 
Germany. The great army under Schwarzeuberg 
passes through Switzerland, and makes its way to 
the plateau of Langres (the source of the Seine, 
Aube, and IMarne), where it begins to arrive about 
the middle of January; Bllicher's Silesian army 
crosses the middle Rhine to Nancy ; the northern 



JETAT. 44.] Invasion of France. 203 

army, iiomiually under Bernadotte, passes through 
Holland. In the course of the march Switzerland 
and Holland were swept into the Coalition, the 
resources of which now became overwhelming. It 
would be difficult to state for what object Napoleon 
called on France to fight another campaign, particu- 
larly as the allies guaranteed to her a larger terri- 
tory than she had possessed under tlie old monarchy. 
His officers indeed wondered what personal object 
he could have. They were astonished to hear 
him talk of another campaign in Germany to be 
undertaken next spring, of being soon on the Vis- 
tula again, &c. He was no doubt a prey to ittrp' 
sions, iiis fortune having accustomed him to expect 
results ten times greater than the probabilities 
justified, but his confidence was founded on (1) the 
great force which still remained to him shut up in 
German fortresses, (2) the mutual jealousy of the 
allies, (3) his own connection with the Emperor 
of Austria, (4) the patriotism which would be 
roused among the French, as in 1792, by the inva- 
sion. But his calculations were confounded by 
tlie rapidity of the invaders, who gave him no time 
to call out the nation. The Senate did indeed 
grant him 300,000 men, but to levy, drill, and arm 
them was impossible, and he had neglected to for- 
tify Paris. In the armies which had returned 



204 Campaign of France. [a.d. i8u. 

from Germany there hegan desertion of all who 
were not Freucli. The campaign opened at the 
end of January, and was over at the end of March. 
The scene of it was the country between the 
Marne, Aube, and Seine, partly also the depart- 
ment of Aisne. At first, though successful at 
Brienne, Napoleon seemed unable to resist the 
superior numbers of the enemy. He was defeated 
at La Eothiere. But the invaders were as yet 
irresolute ; they divided their forces. This gave 
him an opportunity. He attacked Bliicher, and, 
though Avith greatly inferior forces, won four bat- 
tles in four days, at Champaubert (February 10), 
at Moutmirail (11), at Cliateau-Thicrry (12), at 
Vauchamps (13). For the moment this brilliant 
success gave the campaign quite another charac- 
ter ; the hopes and patriotic feelings of the French 
were roused. A congress had already been opened 
at Chatillon, and under the impression of these 
victories it would have been easy to conclude a 
peace, had not Napoleon's position made a reason- 
able peace inadmissible to him. He felt this, and 
fell back upon illusions, and upon attempts to 
sever Austria from the Coalition. At the begin- 
ning of jMarcli the Coalition was strengthened by 
the treaty of Chaumont, in which each of the four 
powers bound themselves for twenty years to keep 



^TAT. 44.] Siege and Fall of Paris. 205 

150,000 men on foot. Directly afterwards Napo- 
leon received a crushing blow from the fall of 
Soissons and the junction of I)liicher's army with 
the northern army undijr TJiilow, which had entered 
France by way of Holland and Belgium. Their 
united force amounted to more than 100,000 men. 
The battles of Craonno and Laon followed, in 
which Na])()leo i, without suffering actual defeat, 
saw his resources dwindle away. On March 18 
the conferences at Chatillon came to an end, the 
plenipotentiaries of the allies declaring Napoleon 
to have no intention but that of gaining time. 
About the 2-4th the allies came to the resolution 
to march on Paris. They had before them only 
IVIarmont and Mortier, for Napoleon himself had 
resolved to manceiivro in their rear, and had 
marched to St. Dizier. The marshals, after an 
engagement at Fere Champenoise, made good their 
retreat to Paris, where the enemy followed them 
on the 29th. Jo.seph Bonaparte withdrew Marie 
Louise and the King of Rome to Tours. On the 
oOth the allies attacked in three divisions — the 
Silesiau army on the side of Montmartre, Prince 
Eugene of Wurtemberg and Barclay de Tolly by 
I'antin and Pomainville, the Crown Prince of Wur- 
temberg and Giulay by Vincennes and Charenton. 
In the afternoon, after an obstinate resistance, the 



206 The Political Struggle. [a.d. i814. 

marshals offered a capitulation, aud engaged to 
evacuate the town before seveu o'clock in the 
morning. Napoleon, advancing by forced marches, 
was too late. The military struggle is over; the 
political struggle begins. 

Since 1804 there had been no independent po- 
litical life in France. During the Eussiau expe- 
dition, indeed, a certain General Malet had spread 
a false report of Napoleon's death in Eussia, and 
had produced a forged decree of the Senate re- 
storing the republic. His attempt had for the 
}noment had so much success that Napoleon had 
painfully felt the precariousness of his dynasty, 
the purely provisional cliaracter of the monarchy 
he had founded. Laiu6 of Bordeaux again had 
been bold enough, when Napoleon made his last 
appeal for help to the Corps Legislatif, to conjure 
him, while he defended the country, to maintain 
the entire execution of the laws which guarantee 
to the citizen liberty, security, and property, and 
to the nation the free exercise of its political 
rights. Napoleon had replied with an outburst 
of indignation. But now at last it became nec- 
essary to take an independent resolution, for in 
the influential classes it began to be understood 
that Napoleon must fall, and in particular the 
generals asked themselves for what rational pur- 



^TAT. 44.] The Political Struggle. 207 

pose troops were still levied and battles still 
fought. But not even the germs were visible of 
any authority that could replace that of Napoleon. 
Should he be succeeded by another general, or by 
a regency for his son, or by the Bourbons ? The 
first course might have been possible had some 
IMoreau been at hand ; even as it was, Bernadotte, 
who, like Napoleon, was a Jacobin developed into 
a prince, made pretensions which were favored by 
the Czar. Such a course would have been a re- 
vival of the consulate, but it would not have 
satisfied the republican party, while it would 
have been rejected by monarchists of every shade. 
In favor of the regency, as against the Bourbons, 
there was much to be said. It would not begin 
with a fantastic transformation-scene, and it would 
have a hold on the popular imagination. The de- 
cision fell out by a sort of accident. To a regency 
the natural road was by an abdication, which would 
preserve the principle of inheritance. Such an ab- 
dication Napoleon gave. On April 4th he reviewed 
his troops at Fontainebleau, and announced his in- 
tention of attacking the allies in Paris. They re- 
ceived his words with enthusiasm ; but just at this 
point the mainstay of his power failed him. The 
military aristocracy, the marshals, refused to fol- 
low him, and Napoleon recognized in a moment 



208 Deposition of Napoleon. [a.d. isu. 

that the end was come. Though in arguing with 
them he had said that a regency of Marie Louise, 
whom he called ' a child,' was impossible, yet he 
now abdicated on condition that his son should 
succeed under the regency of the empress. Ney, 
Macdonald, aud Caulaincourt set out for Paris to 
negotiate tlie establisliment of the regency. 

Napoleon's power rested first on the support of 
the great military magnates, but secondly on that 
of the great civil dignitaries, lavishly enriched by 
him, whose organ was the Senate. While the 
marshals forced him to abdicate, liis reign had 
been brouglit to an end in a wholly dilferent way 
by the Senate. Talleyrand, vice-president of this 
body, who had for some time been intriguing in 
favor of the house of Bourljon, pronounced openly 
in favor of it before the sovereigns wlieu they en- 
tered Paris. 'The regency,' he said, ' was an in- 
trigue ; tlie Bourbons alone were a principle.' He 
convoked the Senate on April 1st, and on April 
2d it voted the deposition of Napoleon aud his 
family. Tliis decision was ratified tlie next day 
by the Corps Legislatif. 

Then occurrcid the alidication in favor of his 
family, which had the support of the army. The 
instrument was ])rought to Paris by not less than 
three famous marshal-s, Ney and Macdonald hav- 



^TAT. 44.] The Marshals Disagree. 209 

iiig been joined on their way from Fontainebleau 
by JMarmont. The two solutions were thus brought 
at the same time before the allied sovereigns) of 
whom Alexander was not favorably disposed to the 
Bourbons, and Francis was the father of Marie 
Louise. For a moment the balance trembled. 

But Marmont had been brought in contact, 
during his defence of Paris, with Talleyrand, 
and had committed himself to him before the 
marshals took their independent course. After 
evacuating Paris he liad been stationed on the 
Essonne. Here he had entered into an en- 
gagement to place liis corps at the service of 
the new provisional Government which the 
Senate had constituted; tlie arrangement was 
that on April 5th the corps should quit its 
position and march into Normandy. But when 
the marslials passing through his camp from 
Fontainebleau told him of tlieir commission, he 
had revealed the secret of this engagement with 
expressions of penitence : he had countermanded 
liis orders to the inferior oflicers, and had gone 
with the marshals to Paris. In his absence, 
however, General Souhanj, influenced by a fear 
that tlie plot had become known to Napoleon, 
gave orders to the troops to march on Versailles. 
This appearance of division in the arn)y was 
14 



210 Abdication of Napoleon. [a.d. 1814. 

fatal to Napoleon's family. It decided Alexan- 
der to declare for the Bourbons, and Caulain- 
court was instructed to demand from Napoleon 
an abdication pure and simple. In return he 
was to retain the title of emperor, and to have 
the island of Elba in sovereignty, while Marie 
Louise was to have a principality in Italy. The 
unconditional abdication was siu;ned at Fontaine- 
bleau on Ajail 11. 

By an irony of fortune the Government founded 
at Brumaire, in which everything had been sacri- 
ficed to military efiiciency, was the only one of 
the three Governments of France since 1789 
which actually succumbed before an invader. 
The total result of so many conquests was that 
France, which, when Napoleon's name was first 
heard of, was in substantial possession of Belgium, 
the left bank of the Ehine, Savo}^, and Nice, had 
now lost the first two acquisitions ; and we shall 
see what measures he took to deprive her of the 
other two. His fatal power of bewildering the 
popular mind was already at work again. This 
last campaign, the most unpatriotic he ever fouglit, 
had seemed to redeem his faults, and had given 
him the name of a heroic defender of his country. 
It was a view which made way fast, as soon as he 
had the restored Bourbons for a foil 



^TAT. 44-1 His Farewell. 211 



§ 4. He retires to Elba. — Disquiet in France. — The 
Hundred Days. — Battle of Waterloo. 

In the mean time however all the hatred, Ions 
suppressed, of individuals and of parties broke 
loose upon him. For the moment he seems to 
have utterly lost heart. On the night of April 11, 
after signing the uu conditional abdication, he is 
said to have taken a dose of a poison which ever 
since the Eussian campaign he had kept by him. 
But vomitings, we are told, came on and saved 
him. On the 20th, when he bade farewell to his 
soldiers, he had resolved to live, in order ' to re- 
cord the great deeds we have done together.' He 
soon found another object for life ; but a year 
later, after another downfall far more complete 
and ignominious, he clings to life, and he clings 
to it afterwards in captivity. The soldiers idolized 
hira still, and his parting scene at Fontainebleau, 
when he kissed the eagle, was pathetic ; but when 
he reached the south of France, he met with other 
demonstrations of feeling. At Avignon and Orgon 
the crowd attacked the carriages, and wanted to 
throw the tyrant into the Rhone. He was com^ 
pellcd to disguise himself At the coast he was 
met by an English frigate, which landed him on 



212 liduni of llic lUnirbons. [a. u. 1814. 

May 'It.li at I'oito l''«'rrai(t, in l'!ll)a. It- seems (o 
liavo heeii ai'raii'_^('(l aiunii',- the S(i\ci'ei|^lis thai lii.s 
wife and cliilil weic nut \n icjoiii him, nor tliil h(! 
(•(iiiiplaiii (if this IMane Ldiiisi^ set (Mit I'ni- her 
old hmnc on .\|iiil llild, and was at Schdnhninn 
u^iiin heloic tlic end of l\lay. Ahoiit thti saniu 
time Jose|ihiiie died a( ^hdmais(ln, in tho uriiia of 
lier ('hddivM l'!ii"rne and I |(iit('ns(\ 

It must have oeeiirred lo Napoloon vory soon 
after Ids ani\al in Mlhu that he- waa not 3'et 
(liiNcn to aiil(iliio^ra|»hy. Never was a <^roat 
.state in a jHisdimi so untcnalih' and monstrous as 
l*'ninco al'tcr he ([uiltcd the helm. In twenty 
years of t.hrilliii"; events, in the cmolions lir.st of 
tragedy and then ol" epic |uiclr\, the I'Veut h had 
forgotten the Hoiirlion ennrl, when snddeiil)' the 
old Condi' lie I'niveuee (under the name 111' l.ouis 
Will "i anil the Comte d'Artois, Condi- and the 
I >ue d'Angouleme and the ( )r|)heline dn 'i'em]il(\ ro- 
uppeared and took possession of the eonnlry, liel'oro 
even a royalist party liad formed itself in I'Vaneo. 
Tolitieally indeed they l)ron",ht liherty, for they 
created a parliament, where all a.ssemhlies had 
been mule and ser\ ile for foiuteen years ; ]n\l 
they unsrtlled all domestie affairs, tho position (»f 
jinhlic men, the jirospei-ts of the army, the title of 
estates, in a manner so sudden and inloleralile, 



*TAT. 45.] Congress of Vienna. 213 

cspociiilly at a iiionieiit ■when the country had 
suffered conquest from without, tliat some new 
convulsion seemed manifestly innuinent. Dis- 
graced, l)(!\vildoro(l, and alarmed at tlio same time, 
the French could think with regret even of tho 
reign of Napoleon. The wludesale massacre of 
the last two years might have been expected to 
seem like a had dream as soon as the s})ell was 
snapped, lait it began to seem regrettable in com- 
parison with the present humiliation. Another 
event liappened which was like a new revolution. 
The prisoners and the troops shut up in Gernum 
fortresses returned to France under the treaty, per- 
haps not less than 300,000 men. What could be 
more evident than that, if all these soldiers could 
take the field again, and under Napoleon, Fi'anee 
might yet escape the humiliation of a Govei'ument 
ini])Osed by the foreigner, and perhaps also recover 
her lost frontiers ? The congress of Vienna en- 
tered ujion business in Septcunlier, and with this 
a new chapter of politics opened. Franco ceased 
to bo the general bugbear, and new alliances be- 
gan to be formed in order to check the aggressive 
spirit of Russia. The European Coalition, once 
dissolved, n)ight prove not easy to reconstitute. 
Internal politics also had altered. A wild party 
of ultras had sprung up among the royalists ; the 



214 Return from Elba. [a.d. isis. 

church was beginning to give disquiet to the 
holders of national property; the army was en- 
raged by seeing dmigrcs, who had fought against 
France, appointed in great numbers to the com- 
mand of regiments. 

It was not the first time that Xapoleon had gone 
into a sort of exile. As he had disappeared in the 
East, and returned to make Brumaire, so he might 
come from Elba to rescue France. The situation 
was not l^ss intolerable than in 1799. As then, 
so now, nad he not returned, a revolution would 
nevertheless have taken })lace. Fouche was weav- 
ing a military plot, which would have carried to 
power perhaps the Duke of Orleans, perhaps the 
King of Eome. 

He entered upon the last of his thousand adven- 
tures on February 26, 1815, when he set sail from 
Porto Ferraio with Generals Bertrand and Drouot 
and 1,100 soldiers. On March 1st he reached the 
French coast at the gulf Jouan between Cannes 
and Antibes. Twenty days after he entered the 
Tuileries in triumph. 

He had judged the feelings of the army cor- 
rectly, and also the effect which would be pro- 
duced by his prodigious fame. These causes were 
more than enough to overthrow a Government so 
totally without root as that of the Bourbons. 



^T.vT. 45.] Tlic Hundred Days. 215 

From the coast lie took the way across the moun- 
tains of Provence by Sisteron and Gap to Grenoble. 
The soldiers sent from this town to stop him were 
disarmed when he uncovered his breast and asked, 
Which of them would fire on his emperor ? He 
was then joined by the royalist La Bedoyere. 
Macdonald at Lyons stood firm, but was deserted 
by his soldiers. Ney, who commanded in the east, 
at first declared himself violently against his old 
chief, but the military feeling afterwards gained 
him, and he joined Napoleon at Auxerre. The 
king left the Tuileries on the 19th, retiring north- 
ward, and on the next day Napoleon entered 
Paris. 

At Brumaire he had put down Jacobinism, and 
given the nation order and repose. Now he was 
summoned, in the name of independence, to pro- 
tect tlie acquisitions of the Ptcvolution, and to 
defend the national honor against the trium- 
phant foreigner. The Hundred Days are the 
period of popular or democratic imperialism. 
Those who sided with him told him frankly 
that he must turn over a new leaf, and he pro- 
fessed himself ready to do so. It would be rash 
to say that this was impossible. He was but in 
his forty-sixth year ; his return from Elba was an 
astonishing proof that he still possessed that elas- 



216 Napoleon Liberator. [a.d. i815. 

ticity of spirit, that power of grasping the future, 
which lie had often shown so remarkably. Here 
then, as at a second Brumaire, might begin a third 
Napoleonic peiiod. The mad crusade against Eng- 
land and the world-empire which sprang out of it 
were now to be forgotten ; the oppressor of Tyrol 
and Spain was to stand out as a heroic representa- 
tive of the free modern people against the Holy 
Alliance. This last and most audacious of his 
transformations was already most prosperously 
--feegun. But at this point fortune deserted him 
once for all. Napoleon Liberator remained a 
poetical idea, transforming his past life into le- 
gend, and endowing French politics with a new 
illusion ; the attempt to realize it came to an end 
in a hundred days (March 13 to June 22). 

The ultimate cause of this failure seems to have 
been a cnangc in Napoleon himself. It had loug 
been remarked that the Emperor Napoleon was 
wholly different from the General Bonaparte of 
the Italian campaigns. Bonaparte had been lean, 
shy, laconic, all fire and spirit, the very type of 
republican virtue imagined by Rousseau ; the Em- 
peror M-as fat and talkative, and had his fits, ac- 
cording to Marmont, of indolent ease. Once or 
twice there liad been attacks of illness, by which 
he had been temporarily incapacitated ; but this 



jicTAT. 45.) Chiinyc in Nrqjoleon. 217 

had 1)0011 liusluid up. On the whole ho had nover 
yot l)(HMi wuutiii;^' Lo hiiiisolf. In Iho cain[)iu;4n of 
1814 his activity had boiui prodigious, and tho 
march lo I'ari.-i in twenty days, with which h(! 
liad o[)i'iiod iMlf), had boon a ^roat disphiy ol" 
vitror. lUit ho couhl not maintain himself at 
this h^vel. A physical de(!;iy had hegiin in him, 
an'oL'tiuL,' thi'ouj^h his body, not indeod his mind, 
but his will ami his ])o\\('r of applicaticm. ' 1 
do not know him a;.;ain,' .said Carnot. 'Ho 
talks instead ol' acting', ho tiu^ man ol" iiqtid do 
cisions ; ho asks opinions, lui tho imperious dic- 
tator, who seemed insulted by advice ; his mind 
wanders, though ho used to have the power of 
attending to everything wluni and as lu; would ; 
he is sleepy, and ho used to bo able to sleep and 
wake at pleasure.' This last .symptom was the 
most striking; in some of tho most critical and tor- 
riblc monuuits of tho Waterloo (campaign lui seems 
to have been scarcely able to keep himself awake. 
The constitutional history of the Hundred 
Days may bo despatched summarily, since it 
led to nothing. On Mandi 13 an ini[)eiial de- 
cree was issued from I.yons dissolving the two 
chambers cstablishoil by the J]ourl)ons, and con- 
voking an extraordinary assembly in Field of 
May for the pur[t(jse 'of correcting and modil'y- 



218 ' Acte AdditionneV [a.i>. 1815. 

iii;^' our coiistiLulioii.s, and of fis.siHl.in<>" at tlui coro- 
luiLioii of ilu! ICiiiprcss, our dear and woll-beloved 
spouso, and of our dear and wcll-hciloved son.' I'ut 
the iirospccl soon (•han;^a'd, and, as it was necessary 
that l\n\ cnipiro, liko tlui monarchy, sliould have 
iUi cliartcr, it sconicd iuipossihlc. to wait till JNIay. 
JMapolcou had recourse to lU'iijaniin Constant, that 
is, he marked his change of policy by sending for 
the leader of the oi)position. The ' Acte Addition- 
nel aux (Constitutions de I'Mmpire,' dated A])rii UU, 
was di'awn by (lonstanl, examined by a counuittee, 
and then ailopted by the council of state. Tho 
most remarkable feature of it is the preandde, in 
which he explains his change of attitude by say- 
ing that ' formerly lui had endeavored to organize 
u grand federal system in Europe, which lie had 
regai'deil as agreeable to tho spirit of the age anil 
favorable to the pn)gress of civilization,' that ' ftjr 
this purpose he iiad ailjourned (Jie iiil roduction of 
free institutions,' but that ' henceforward ho Lad 
no other object but to increase tho prosperity of 
France by strengthening ])ublie liberty,' 

This neat misi'ei)reseiitation deserves notice as 
having imi)oseil on many pei)i>le. For the rest it 
is to be observed that the act creates uu hereditary 
jieerage. The lueld of ]\Iay was lield, but not till 
.lune 1. Napoleon appeared in a granil costume 



iETAT. 45] Declaration of the Great Powers. 219 

and distributed llag.s, l)ut the ' woll-belovcd spouse 
and son ' wore not there ; Europe had declared 
against him. On the 12th he set out lor the 
campaign. 

The Great Powers had issued, immediately 
on hearing of Napoleon's disembarkation (March 
liJLh), a dcelaration putting him outside all civil 
and social relations, and consigning Iiim to public 
vengeance as 'an enemy and disturber of tlie peace 
of the world.' On March 2r)th tlicy reconstituted 
the Coalition. Was this a disappointment to Na- 
poleon ? A war of liberation was perhaps neces- 
sary to him. To be freely accepted by the French 
people, and then to be rejected by Europe, gave 
him precisely the opportunity he sought of stand- 
ing forth as the heroic chamj)ion of national inde- 
pendence. He had now all the soldiers who at 
the time of his first fall had been locked up in 
fortresses or foreign prisons. His position was 
therefore such as it had been in 1813, not in 
1814, and he proposed to defend not a vast em- 
pire but simply France, so that he had on his side 
patriotism and liberalism. All this, and his own 
genius ! Would not so nmch sufUce ? Probably 
he remembered Brumaire, how low the fortune of 
France at that time had been, and how suddenly 
Marengo had restored all. For the moment, how- 



220 Napoleons last Campaign, [ad. 1815. 

ever, the inequality of numbers Avas great. In June 
the allies had in the field more than 700,000, Na- 
poleon little more than 200,000, men. There were 
already English troops in Belgium, where they were 
engaged in establishing the new kingdom of the 
Netherlands, and there wei'e Prussian troops in 
the Rhenish province which had just been given 
to Prussia. It was a question for Napoleon, 
whether he should assume a defensive attitude 
and allow the allies to invade France — this in 
itself would liave suited his new policy best — 
or carry the war into Belgium, a country long 
united with France, and attack the English and 
Prussians. He shrank from inflicting a new in- 
vasion upon France, especially on account of the 
strength of the royalist party in many regions, 
and thus it was that the scene of the campaign 
was laid in Belgium. The English had their 
head-quarters at Brussels, the Prussians at Li^ge. 
He formed the plan of dividing them and beating 
them in turn, as he had served the Austrians and 
Sardinians at the very beginning of his career. 
]\Iany circunistances, however, were different. 
Wellington and Bliicher with Gneisenau were 
superior to Colli and Beaulieu ; the Napoleon of 
1815 was vastly inferior to the Bonaparte of 1796. 
Of all the Napoleouic campaigns this proved by 



^TAT. 45.] The Tii'o Armies. 221 

far the most rapid and decisive. Even the Ma- 
rengo campaign had lasted a month, but this 
Avas decided in three days. Leaving Paris on 
the 12th, Napoleon "was in Paris again on the 21st, 
his own fate and that of his empire and that of 
France decided. Everything concurred to make 
tills short struggle the most interesting military 
occurrence of modern history : its desperate inten- 
sity, its complete decisiveness, the presence for the 
first and last time of the English army in the front 
of the European contest, the presence of the three 
most renowned commanders, Napoleon, Wellington, 
and Bliicher. Accordingly it has been debated 
with infinite curiosity, and misrepresented on all 
sides witli infinite partiality. Napoleon's army 
amounted to 122,401 men; it contained a large 
number of veterans, besides many who had seen 
tlie campaigns of 1813-14, and was perhaps the 
finest army he had ever commanded. That of 
Wellington was composed of Englishmen, Han- 
overians, BrunsM'ickers, Nassauers, Germans, and 
Netherlanders ; the total is stated at 105,950. 
But in the Netherlands of the newly established 
kingdom no confidence could be placed, and yet 
these amounted to nearly 30,000 ; the English too 
(about 35,000) were in great part raw recruits 
(the Peninsular veterans being mainly absent in 



222 The Battle of Waterloo. [a.d. 1815. 

America) : altogether Wellington pronounced it 
' the worst army ever brought together.' The 
army of Blucher numbered 110,897 disciplined 
troops, animated by an intensely wailike spirit. 
Napoleon's opening Avas prosperous. He main- 
tained so ]nuch secrecy, and used so much rapidity, 
that he succeeded in throwing himself between 
the two armies. On the IHtli he advanced and 
occupied Charleroi. On the IGth he engaged the 
Prussians at Ligny and the English at Quatrebras, 
desiring to block tlie cross-road between Quatre- 
bras and Sombreffe, and so to sever the two 
armies. Napoleon personally commanded against 
the Prussians, and here he gained his last victory. 
The battle was very bloody; about 12,000 Prus- 
sians fell, and Bliicher himself was woundeil. At 
Quatrebras Ney met Wellington, and was forced 
to retreat. But the defeat of TUiiclier made it 
necessary for Wellington to retiie on Brussels in 
order to effect a junction witli the rrussians. The 
17th was spent in this retrograde movement, and 
on the 18th Wellington accepted battle on the 
heights of St. Jean, I'rom which the French name 
the day, while the English give it the name of 
Waterloo, a village four miles nearer to Brussels, 
where Wellington wrote his despatch. He ac- 
cepted battle in full reliance upon the help of the 



jETxr. 45.] The Battle of Waterloo. 223 

Prussians, who are not therefore to be consid- 
ered as having saved him from defeat. 

Military writers point out several errors, some 
of them considerable, committed by Wellington, 
but their criticism of Napoleon, which begins by 
sweeping away a mass of falsehood devised by 
him and his admirers in order to throw the 
blame upon others, is so crushing that it seems 
to show us Napoleon, after his brilliant com- 
mencement, acting as an indolent and inefficient 
general. He first, through mere want of energy, 
allows the Prussians to escape him after Ligny, 
and then sends jMarshal Grouchy with 33,000 
men in the wrong direction in pursuit of them. 
Owing to this mismanagement, Grouchy is at 
Wavre on the day of the battle of Waterloo, 
fighting a useless battle against the Prussian corps 
of Thielemann, while Bllicher is enabled to keep 
Lis engagement to Wellington. Everywhere dur- 
ing these days Napoleon appears negligent, inac- 
tive, inaccessible, and rather a Darius than an 
Alexander, so that it has been plausibly main- 
tained that he must have been physically incapaci- 
tated by illness. The battle itself was one of the 
most remarkable and terrible ever fouglit, but 
it was perhaps on both sides rather a soldiers' than 
a general's battle. It consisted of five distinct 



224 Five Attacks. [a.d. 1815. 

attacks ou the English position: — (1) an attack 
on the English right by the division Eeille, (2) au 
attack on the left by the division D'Erlon 
(here Picton was killed), (3) a grand cavalry 
attack, where tlie splendid French cavalry ' foamed 
itself away ' upon the English squares, (4) a suc- 
cessful attack by Ney on La Haye Saiute (which 
Wellington is thought to have too much neglected ; 
it was after this tliat the Frencli prospect seemed 
briglitest), (5) the charge of the guard. In the 
middle of the third act of this drama the Prussians 
began to take part in the action. The battle seems 
to have begun about 11.30, and about 8 o'clock in 
the evening the cry ' Sauve qui pent ' arose from 
the guard. A general advance of the English 
decided the victory, and then the pursuit was 
very thorougldy accomplished by the Prussians 
under Gneisenau. Napoleon at first took refuge 
in a square. At Genappe he left this, and arrived 
at Charleroi about daybreak with au escort of 
about twenty horsemen. 

§ 5. The second Ahdicntion. — Surrender to England. 
— Exile in St. Helena. — Autohiograxihy . 

He lost probably more than 30,000 out of 72,000 
men, but the grand army M^as utterly dissolved. 
The whole loss of the allies was somewhat more 



^TAT. 45.] Napoleon in Despair. 225 

than 22,000. Had Napoleon been victorious, ho 
Avoiild but have opened the war prosperously, for 
half a million soldiers, in addition to those of 
Wellington and Bliicher, were on tlie march for 
France ; being completely defeated, he had no re- 
source, but was ruined at once. France was con- 
quered, as she had been conquered the year before ; 
but her second fall appears far more humiliating 
and dismal than her first, when we consider how 
enthusiastically she had rallied to Napoleon, and 
how instantaneously Napoleon and she had been 
struck down together. It was a moment of unre- 
lieved despair for the public men who gathered 
round him on his return to Paris, and among these 
were several whose fame was of earlier date than 
his own. La Fayette, the man of 1789 ; Carnot, 
organizer of victory' to the Convention ; Lucieu, 
who had decided the revolution of Brumaire, — 
all these met in that comfortless deliberation. 
Carnot was for a dictatorshij) of public safety, that 
is, for renewing his great days of 1793 ; Lucien 
too liked the Eoman sound of the word dictator. 
' Dare ! ' he said to his brother, but tlie spring of 
that terrible will was broken at last. ' I have 
dared too much already, ' said Napoleon. Mean- 
while, in the Cliamber of Eepreseutatives the 
word was not dictatorsliip but liberty. Here La 
16 



226 The Second Abdication. [a.d. isis. 

Fayette caused the assembly to vote itself penna- 
nent, and to declare guilty of high treason Avho- 
ever should attempt to dissolve it. He hinted 
that, if the word abdication were not soon pro- 
nounced on the other side, he would himself 
pronounce the word ' decheance.' The second ab- 
dication took place on June 22d. ' I offer myself 
a sacrifice to tlie hati'cd of the enemies of France. 
My public life is huished, and 1 proclaim my son, 
under the title of Napoleon II., Emperor of the 
French.' On the 25th he retired to ]\lalmaisou, 
where Josephine had died the year before. Ho 
had by no means yet ceased to hope. When his 
son was passed over by the Chamber of Itcpresen- 
tatives, who named an executive commission of 
live, he protested that he had not intended to 
make way for a new Directory ; and, as Carnot 
and Caulaincourt were on this commission, the 
circumstances of l^rumaire seem to have flashed 
iuto his memory, lie saw again two Directors 
supporting him, and the other three (Fouche, 
Grenier, and (.^)uinette — 'a traitor and two babies,' 
as he expressed it) might remind him of Barras, 
Moulins, and G older. On the 27th he went so 
far as to offer his services once more as general, 
'regarding myself still as the hrst soldier of the 
nation.' lie was met by a refusal, and left Mai- 



^TAT. 45.] Napoleons Surrender to England. 227 

maisou on the 29th for Rochcfort, well furnished 
with books on the United States. 

France was by this time entering upon another 
Eeiffn of Terror. Massacre had bes^un at Marseilles 
as early as the 25th. What should Napoleon do ? 
He had been formerly the enemy of every other 
nation, and now he was the worst enemy, if not of 
France, yet of the triumphant faction in France. 
He linj^crod some days at Rochefort, where he had 
arrived on July od, and then, tinding it impossible 
to escape the vigilance of the English cruisers, 
went on the loth on board the ' Bellerophon ' and 
surrendered himself to Captain Maitland. It 
was explained to him that no conditions could be 
accepted, but that he would be ' conveyed to Eng- 
land to be received in such manner as the Prince 
Regent should deem expedient.' He had written 
at the lie d'Aix the following characteristic letter 
to the Prince Regent: — 'Royal Highness, — A 
prey to the factions which divide my country and 
to the enmity of the powers of Europe, I have ter- 
minated my public career, and T come, like Them- 
istocles, to seat myself at the hearth of the P>ritish 
people. I place myself under the protection of 
its laws, which I claim from your Royal Highness 
as the most powerful, tlie most constant, and the 
most generous of my enemies.' 



228 England's Treatment of Him. [a.d. i8i5. 

It was perhaps the only course open to him. 
Ill France his life could scarcely have been spared, 
and Bllicher talked of executing him on the spot 
where the Due d'Eughien had fallen. He there- 
fore could do nothing but what he did. His 
reference to Theinistocles shows that he M'as 
conscious of being the worst enemy that England 
had ever had. Perhaps he remembered that at 
the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he had studied 
to envenom the contest by detaining the English 
residents in France. Still he might rellect, on the 
other hand, that England was the only great coun- 
try which had not been trampled down and covered 
with massacre by his soldiers. It would have 
been inexcusable if the English Government had 
given way to vindictive feelings, especially as 
they could well afford to be magnanimous, having 
just won the greatest of all victories. But it Avas 
necessary to deprive him of the power of exciting 
new wars, and the experiment of Elba had shown 
that this involved depriving him of his liberty. 
The frenzy which had cost the lives of millions 
must be checked. This was the principle laid 
down in the declaration of March 15th, by which 
he had been excommunicated as a public enemy. 
It was therefore necessary to impose some re- 
straint upon him. He must be separated from 



^TAT. 46.] Arrival at St. Helena. 229 

his party and from all the revolutionary party in 
Europe. So long as he remained in Europe this 
would involve positive imprisonment. The only 
arrangement therefore which would allow him 
tolerable personal comfort and enjoyment of life, 
was to send him out of Europe. From these con- 
siderations grew the decision of the Government 
to send him to St. Helena. An Act of Parliament 
was passed ' for the better detainiug in custody 
Napoleon Bonaparte,' and another Act for subject- 
ing St. Helena to a special system of government. 

He was kept on board tlie ' Bellerophon ' till 
August 4th, wlien he was transferred to the ' JSTorth- 
umberland.' On October loth he arrived at St. 
Helena, accompanied by Counts Montholon, Las 
Cases, and Bertrand, with their families, General 
Gourgaud, and a number of servants. In April, 
1816, arrived Sir Hudson Lowe, an officer who had 
been knighted for bringing the new-s of the cap- 
ture of Paris in 1814, as governor. 

The rest of his life, which continued till May 5, 
1821, was occupied partly in quarrels with this 
governor, which have now lost their interest, partly 
in the task he had undertaken at the time of his 
first abdication, that of relating his past life. He 
did not himself write this narrative, nor does it 
appear that he even dictated it word for word. 



230 His Autobiography. [a.d. 1815. 

It is a report made partly by General Gourgaud, 
partly by Count JMonthoIon, of Napoleon's impas- 
sioned recitals ; but they assure us that this report, 
as published, has been read and corrected through- 
out by him. It gives a tolerably complete account 
of the period between the siege of Toulon and the 
battle of Marengo. On the later period there is 
little, except a memoir on the campaign of 1815, 
to which the editors of the Corrcsjjondcncc have 
been able to add another on Elba and the Hundred 
Days. 

These memoirs have often been compared to the 
Commentaries of Caesar, and their value would 
indeed be priceless, if they related to a period im- 
perfectly known. But an age which has abun- 
dance of information, and takes history very 
seriously, is struck particularly by the elaborate 
falsifications which they contain. A vast number 
of misstatements, many of them evidently inten- 
tional, have been brought home to him, and in 
several cases he has tried to foist into history 
apocryphal documents. 

By dwelling almost exclusively upon the earlier 
period and on the Waterloo campaign, they helped 
forward the process by which he M-as idealized 
after his death. They reminded the ^^'orld that 
the Prometheus now agonizing on the lonely rock. 



JETAT. 46] The Napoleonic Legend. 231 

who had lately fallen in defending a free nation 
against a coalition of kings and emperors, was the 
same who, in his youth, had been the champion 
of the First French Kepublic against the First 
Coalition, They consigned the long interval to 
oblivion. Hence the Napoleonic legend, which 
has grown np in the very midst of the 19th century, 
and would perhaps never have been seriously 
shaken but for the failure of the Second Empire. 
Look at Napoleon's career between 1803 and 1814, 
when it was shaped most freely by his own will ; 
you see a republic skilfully undermined and a new 
hereditary monarchy set up in its place. This 
new monarchy stands out as the great enemy and 
oppressor of nationalities, so tliat the nationality 
movement, when it begins in Spain and Tyrol and 
spreads through North Germany, is a reaction 
against Napoleon's tyranny. But in 1815 he suc- 
ceeded in posing as a champion and martyr of the 
nationality principle against the Holy Alliance. 
The curtain fell upon this pose. It brought back 
the memory of that Bonaparte, who at the end of 
the 18th century had seemed the antique republi- 
can hero dreamed of by Eousseau, and men forgot 
once more how completely he had disappointed 
their expectations. By looking only at the begin- 
ning and at the end of his career, and by disregard- 



232 His Death. [a.d. is2i. 

ing all tlie intermediate period, an imaginary 
Napoleon has been obtained, ■\vbo is a repul)lican, 
not a despot, a lover of liberty, not an authoritarian, 
a champion of the Revolution, not the destroyer of 
the llevolution, a hero of independence, not a con- 
queror, a friend of the people, not a contemner of 
the people, a man of heart and virtue, not a ruthless 
militarist, cynic, and Machiavellian. This illusion 
led to the restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty in 
1852. 

lie died of an ulcer in the stomach on May 5, 
1821. In his will he declared himself a Catholic, 
wished his ashes to repose ' on the banks of the 
Seine, in the midst of the French people whom ho 
liad loved so well,' spoke tenderly of ]\Iaric Louise 
and his son, and of all his relatives except Louis, 
whom he ' pardoned ' for the libel he published in 
1820, disavowed tlie Mannscrit de Sainte Iltlene, 
a mystification which had recently had much suc- 
cess, defended the execution of D'Enghien, imputed 
the two conquests of France to I\Iarmont, Auger- 
eau, Talleyrand, and La Fayette, whom he ' forgave,' 
and devoted the Englisli oligarchy, to wliom lie 
ascribed his premature death, to the vengeance of 
the English people. In a codicil he added a truly 
Corsican touch, bequeathing 10,000 francs to the 
subaltern officer Cantillon, ' who has undergone a 



JET AT. 51.] His Burial. 233 

trial upon the charge of having endeavored to as- 
sassinate Lord Wellington, of which he was pro- 
nounced innocent. Cantillon had as much right 
to assassinate that oligarchist as tlie latter had to 
send me to perish upon the rock of St. Helena.' 

He was buried at Longwood in St. Helena; but 
in the reign of Louis Philippe his remains were re- 
moved by permission of the English Government 
to the Invalides at Paris, where a stately dome 
was erected over the sarcophagus that contains 
them. 



NAPOLEON'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 



NAPOLEON'S PLACE IN HISTORY. 



Aftkr reviewing the career of an historical per- 
son, we desire to form an estimate of his char- 
acter and abilities. Jiiit to find a measure for 
great men, that is, men whose energy ol' iicti(ju 
and whose sphere of action have been exce[)tional, 
is mucli more dillicult than is usually supposed; 
and how extremely dilhcult it is in the case of 
Napoleon may be judged fnjm the wide diver- 
gence in tlie estimates, whether of historians, such 
as Thiers on the one side and Laufrey on the other, 
or of intelligent and impartial contemporaries, such 
as Goethe or Hazlitt on tlu; oik; liand und Jeffer- 
son or Soutliey on th(; other; it may be judged, 
too, from the fact that no clear verdict of poster- 
ity has yet Ijeen, or seems about to be, pronounced 
upon him. lb; ]rAu]H liimscilf readily to unmeas- 
ured pan(^gyric or invective, but scarcely any his- 
toiical person is so (bllicult to nu)asure. It wouhl 
not be in accordance with the modest plan of this 



L-jfr-i*^ 



238 Difficulty of the Question. 

volume to offer a formal estimate, but an essay 
towards such an estimate, or in other words some 
suggestions as to the way in which such an esti- 
\ mate should be formed, may be acceptable. 
^ i The series of Napoleon's successes is absolutely 
Jthe most marvellous in history. No one can ques- 
tion that he leaves far behind him the Turennes, 
Marlboroughs, and Fredericks ; but when we bring 
up for comparison an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Cae- 
sar, a Charles, we find in the single point of mar- 
vellousness Napoleon surpassing them all. Every 
one of those heroes was born to a position of 
exceptional advantage. Two of them inherited 
thrones; Hannibal inherited a position royal in 
all but the name ; Caesar inherited an eminent 
position in a great empire. But Napoleon, who 
rose as high as any of them, began life as an 
obscure provincial, almost as a man without a 
country. It is this marvellousness which para- 
lyzes our judgment. We seem to see at once a 
genius beyond all estimate, a unique character, 
and a fortune utterly unaccountable. 

There can, indeed, be no question that the 
personality and the fortune were both alike 
surprising. But it is only the combination of 
both which is altogether overwhelming. The 
first step towards a calm judgment is to sepa- 



Division of the Subject. 239 

rate the factors. I propose then to inquire how 
much and in what manner Napoleon was favored 
and shaped by circumstances, and afterwards to 
consider how much remains to be explained by 
personal idiosyncrasy. 



240 Favored by Circumstances. 



CHAPTER I. 

HOW FAR NAPOLEON WAS FAVORED BY 
CIRCUMSTANCES. 

§ 1. His Rise to Poiuer. 

There are times, and these are the most usual, 
when the most wonderful abilities would not have 
availed to raise any man from such a station as 
that in which Napoleon was born to the head of 
affairs. But the last years of the eighteenth cen- 
tury formed an exceptional period, in which such 
an ascent was not only possible in France, but — 
and this is carefully to be marked — was quite 
possible without very extraordinary abilities. 
That particular part of Napoleon's career to 
which the Alexanders and Hannibals can show 
nothing parallel is, in fact, just the part which, 
in that exceptional time, was within the reach of 
an ordinary man. 

The Eevolution had broken the fixed mould in 
which European history had run for a thousand 
years, and had introduced a different sort of gov- 
ernment, strange in the feudal world, but well 



His Rise to Power. 241 

known both to antiquity and to mediseval Italy, 
and not difficult to comprehend — Imperialism. 
It is a form which appears almost invariably 
when the growth of a great army coincides with 
the downfall of an ancient government. For this 
reason it had appeared in England, when a stand- 
ing army had for the first time sprung up at the 
moment of the humiliation of the Stuart monarchy. 
For this reason it appeared now in France, when 
at the moment of the fall of the Bourbons the na- 
tion found itself plunged into an unprecedented 
war. Nothing short of a firmly established 
government can hold a great army in check ; 
where that is wanting, the army assumes the 
place of government at once and without resist- 
ance, and this is Imperialism. Its first form is 
usually republican, a clique of officers exerting a 
secret control over the Supreme Assembly. Such 
was the system between 1648 and 1653 in the 
Long Parliament, such at Eome in the ten years 
of the Triumvirate, and such in France under the 
Directory, especially in the years between Fructi- 
dor and Brumaire. But in all these cases alike, 
the system speedily became monarchical. Caesar 
pushed on one side alike the Senate and Pompey, 
Cromwell tlie Long Parliament, and Fairfax, and 
finally Bonaparte dismissed first the Directory, 

16 



242 Favored by Circumstances. 

and then Moreau. "When this change takes 
place the monarch created is always a success- 
ful general, and it is under tliis system that the 
fortunate adventurer is most frequently seen. The 
rise of Bonaparte was not very much more surpris- 
ing than that of Cromwell, and in the classical age 
of Imperialism under the Roman Emperors it re- 
peatedly happened that a rude soldier found him- 
self master of the world, as in fact the real founder 
of Imperialism, Marius, had done. 
-•Thus the miracle of Bonaparte's rise to power 
lies not so much in his personality as in the time. / 
The tradition of a thousand years had been de- 
serted, and what during that time had been un- 
heard of was now possible and natural. We have 
seen that before Bonaparte returned from Egypt, 
other generals had been sounded with a view to a 
chancre in the Constitution. Had he been detained ' 
a little longer on the other side of the Mediterra- 
nean, or had he been captured by an English 
cruiser, we can scarcely conceive but that a rev- 
olution like that of Brumaire would nevertheless 
have taken place, and that it would have elevated 
some other adventurer to supreme power. Some 
officer of considerable military ability, but other- 
wise not extraordinary, would then have stood 
forth as the most powerful man in Europe. 



His Ascendency in Europe. 243 

Even if be failed, he too would have appeared 
to have a marvellous fortune. Perhaps a series 
of such adventurers would have arisen, like that 
of the American Presidents. Assuredl}"- none 
would have taken a position like that of Napo- 
leon, but a Moreau or a Bernadotte might have 
reigned with success and have won great victories. 
It is even most probable that not one would have 
failed so disastrously as ISTapoleon did in the end, 
and that Belgium and Savoy and the left bank 
of the Ehine would not have been lost again to 
France. 

§ 2. His Ascendency in Europe. 

When it is said that Bonaparte by his genius 
gave France an ascendency in Europe, the chrono- 
logical succession of events is neglected, and far 
too much is attributed to Bonaparte, far too little 
to those who came before him. The war had raged 
for four years when Bonaparte began to command 
armies. Without the help of Bonaparte France 
had defeated and dissolved the Coalition, without 
his help she had become an ascendant Power, had 
conquered and parcelled out in departments Bel- 
gium, Savoy, and Nice, had occupied the whole 
left bank of the Rhine, and had reduced Holland 
to cojnplete dependence. It was in this time also. 









.^ 



244 Favored by Circumstances. 

and without the help of Bonaparte, that an unpar- 
alleled military power had grown up in France, 
that a new military system had been devised, and 
a new period of military glory introduced. This 
wonderful revolution had been made before he ap- 
peared ; the military power was already becoming 
supreme, the age of conquest was already begun 
when he first became prominent. Jourdan, Piche- 
gru, Moreau, Carnot, not Bonaparte, directed the 
change. During the next four years the process 
continued without interruption ; Fructidor (1797) 
may be said to hav^e definitively established the 
military government; Lombardy, Central Italy, 
Switzerland, and the left bank of the Ehine were 
added to the practical conquests of France, and 
the Germanic system received a fatal blow. This, 
too, happened before Bonaparte rose to the head of 
affairs ; he had indeed a share, and the greatest 
share, in these changes ; but much was still done 
without him ; he did not give the impetus, but fol- 
lowed an impulse which had been given by others ; 
had he never appeared, the character of government 
in France, and the position of France in Europe, 
would have been substantially the same. Even af- 
ter Brumaire, it is to be remarked that the victory 
which decided the war and gave peace to the Con- 
tinent was not won by Bonaparte but by Moreau. 



His Conquests. 245 



In his first years, then, Bonaparte is borne on 
a mighty tide. During this period we can see 
plainly that his career is only unprecedented, he- 
cause an unprecedented convulsion had introduced 
it. Eevolutionary times afford the occasion of 
exceptional careers, and if Napoleon's career was 
not only exceptional but absolutely unique, it was 
because the French Eevolution also was unique. 

§ 3. His Conquests. 

A similar remark is to be made upon the un- 
paralleled series of triumphant campaigns which 
followed his assumption of supreme power. The 
Eevolution had created a vast machinery both of 
military and political power, which now fell ready- 
made into his hands. In his position, the same 
amount of energy would produce vastly greater re- 
sults than it could produce in the hands of Fred- 
erick or Marlborough. The genius of a leader is 
to be measured not so much by the actual results 
achieved as by the difficulties overcome. When 
we follow William III. in his contest with Louis 
XIV., Frederick in the Seven Years' War, Wash- 
ington in the American War, and Wellington in 
the Peninsula, we remark how they were over- 
matched, how insufficient were the means at their 



246 Favored by Circumstances. 

disposal, and then how they supplied all deficien- 
cies from the resources of their own genius. The 
case of Bonaparte after Bruniaire is opposite to 
these. Never have means so vast, nor such abso- 
lute control over those means, been granted to any 
modern ruler. 

Look first at the means. France had in seven 
years of war gained a position of prodigious mili- 
tary advantage, and controlled the Continent as 
no Power had done before. Moreover, in these 
years slie had formed the habit and the taste for 
war on a large scale. The nation had adapted 
itself through necessity to the practice of putting 
vast armies into the field ; the soldiers were in- 
spired with heroism through the belief, which at 
the outset had been well grounded, that they were 
devoting themselves to their country, and through 
the belief, which was not entirely groundless, that 
they were the champions of great principles. By 
seven years of effort and hardship their valor had 
been tempered, they had acquired discipline. We 
may search history in vain for another military in- 
strument of such efficiency and potency as this 
French army. 

Eemark next how unreservedly this instrument 
was now put at the service of Bonaparte. In most 
states war is felt as a burden, and borne with pain 



His Conquests. 247 



and reluctance ; it involves taxation, which op- 
presses the population ; it meets with opposition 
in assemblies and parliaments. In most states 
the skilled general is in the position of a servant, 
and has to render account either to a jealous sov- 
ereign or to a suffering and impatient community. 
Remember only how William was thwarted, how 
Marlborough was watched, calumniated, and at 
last overthrown, by the Opposition. As much as 
Napoleon's armies exceeded in number and effi- 
ciency those of Marlborough, so much was his 
authority greater, more easily and safely wielded. 
A number of causes had worked together for a 
long time to create in France an unlimited mili- 
tary authority. It was a country in which for a 
century and a half government had been despotic, 
and for a century great military enterprises had 
been undertaken, and had been unboundedly pop- 
ular so long as they were successful. In the Eev- 
olution despotism had only taken a new shape, 
and it had become more energetic than under the 
Bourbons. It had been since 1793 the despotism 
of a military dictatorship, justified at the outset by 
the pressing military needs of a country invaded 
by a coalition, and pressing especially upon the 
army, where Houchard, Custine, and Beauharnais, 
had fallen by the guillotine. Just before Brumaire, 



248 Favored by Circumstances. 

the urgent need of 1793 had reappeared, for 
after a long course of victory the Eepublic had 
suffered reverses, and in 1799 France had been a 
second time threatened with invasion. The iron 
sceptre thus forged in the revolutionary fire now 
fell into the hand of Bonaparte, and for a long 
time all Frenchmen were glad to see it in such 
hands, for they could believe him to be more capa- 
ble than Carnot, while he abjured, at the moment 
that he took it into his hand, all the excesses 
of Jacobinism. Meanwhile, parliaments had been 
discredited in France by ten years of failure. 
After they had been decimated and purged in as 
many revolutions as there were months in the 
revolutionary calendar, the time was come when 
Frenchmen desired to hear no more of them. 
Their debates were now no longer reported, and 
hence it was that at the moment when the mighti- 
est and most disciplined army was put absolutely 
into the hands of the greatest military specialist, 
who was at the same time head of the State, the 
constitutional assemblies, which might have criti- 
cised his plans of war or checked his war budgets, 
were practically silenced. 

The result is that, whereas other great generals 
have exhibited what great things can be done by 
small means, the career of Bonaparte after the 



Was he Invincible ? 249 

beginning of his reigu shows, on the other hand, 
the utmost extent of the performance possible to 
genius provided with unlimited means and facili- 
ties. This remark does not fully apply to his ear- 
lier campaigns, including that of Marengo ; nor, 
again, does it apply to the defensive campaign of 
1814 ; but it applies to the whole unparalleled se- 
ries of triumphs that began with Ulm and ended 
with Dresden. 

§ 4. Was he Invincible ? 

It has been frequently repeated that only in 
four of such a long and crowded series of battles 
was he defeated — that is, at Eylau, Aspern, Leip- 
zig, and Waterloo ; and it is added that of these 
defeats the first two were doubtful, that at Leipzig 
he was but ' pressed to the ground by thronging 
millions,' and that at "Waterloo the fault lay with 
Grouchy, who mistook his orders. By representa- 
tions such as these an impression is produced that 
in war at least his genius was unerring and unlim- 
ited, that it could even control fortune, and that 
it could but just barely be frustrated by the mis- 
take of a subaltern, or by the sheer impossibility 
of the undertaking. 

This is an illusion produced by the popular 
habit of regarding a war as consisting simply of a 



250 Favored by Circumstances. 

series of pitched battles and each battle as a sort 
of duel between the two commanders. The best 
military judges do indeed regard Napoleon as one 
of the greatest of tacticians, and as possessing in 
the highest degree the coup cCceil, promptitude, 
presence of mind, by which battles are won. But 
wlien in a very long series of battles a commander 
meets with scarcely any defeats, the most obvious 
inference surely is that he had very good and 
highly disciplined troops. In many of his cam- 
paigns, especially those of Marengo and of Auster- 
litz, the admirable efficiency of the army formed 
in the Eevolution can be clearly discerned. Bo- 
naparte reaped the benefit of the period of war 
which preceded his advent, and this benefit he 
enjoyed till he threw away in Russia that incom- 
parable army. But a war consists of much more 
than battles, and indeed we should very much 
underrate Napoleon's own military genius if we 
regarded him simply as a winner of battles.""/ Com- 
pared with other generals, he shows his superiority 
less in tactics than in strategy and in the compre- 
hensive war-statesmanship by which a campaign 
on a large scale is planned. But if the highest 
genius may be displayed in strategy, the greatest 
mistakes may also be made in this department. 
It follows that a commander may suffer defeat. 



Napoleon's Failures. 251 

and that on the greatest scale, without personally- 
losing battles ; nay, that he may Min all the battles 
of a campaign and yet lose the campaign itself. 

We have only to apply this principle to Napo- 
leon, and the illusion of his invincibility will dis- 
appear. We see in him a greater strategist than 
any that had appeared before him, but a strategist 
capable of great errors and failures. He achieves 
the most striking successes, but he also suffers the 
most complete and disastrous defeats, and his 
defeats are not less numerous than his successes. 
The most unfortunate general that ever lived,^ 
Xerxes, "<i Darius, or Napoleon's own nephew, 
never underwent such a succession of crushing 
disasters as Napoleon in the years 1812, 1813, 
1814, 1815. And if we look more closely we shall 
see that these were not his only failures, but that 
he suffered others scarcely less complete in earlier 
life, which, however, are little remarked, because 
he succeeded in covering the memory of them in 
a blaze of glory. The glory of Austerlitz, for ex- 
ample, covers the total failure of his ]3lans for the 
invasion of England, plans devised by himself, and 
the failure of which ought to lower our opinion of 
his good fortune as much as the success of them 
would have heightened it — plans which ended in 
the absolute ruin of the French naval power. In 



252 Favored by Circumstances. 

like manner the successful cotij) d'tat of Brumaire 
and the splendid opening of the Consulate conceal 
from our view the failure of the Egyptian expedi- 
tion. Yet what failure could be more unrelieved 
and disastrous ? It ended simply in the re-estab- 
lishment of English supremacy in the Mediterra- 
nean, from which sea the English fleets had been 
withdrawn, and in the acquisition of Malta by 
England. Yet this was Napoleon's favorite enter- 
prise, impressed more tlian most others with the 
mark of his peculiar genius. Moreover, when we 
inquire into the cause of tlie failure we discover 
not some impediment that could not reasonably 
be anticipated, but an ordinary miscalculation vi- 
tiating the whole design — namely, an extravagant 
under-estimate of the naval power of England. 

All these considerations taken together show 
that Napoleon's career, thougli the most extraor- 
dinary on record, does not differ in kind from 
other great careers, but only in degree ; that we 
need not regard it superstitiously, as though either 
fate were specially interested in it, or something 
more than mere genius, some supernatural valor 
and wisdom, were displayed in it. The explana- 
tion of the enormous scale of magnitude which 
prevails in this career is to be found in the French 
Revolution and in the turn which it had taken. 



Influence of the Revolution. 253 

All unprecedented convulsion made the waves run 
liigh, and it so happened that all the wild forces 
and passions let loose in the Eevolution had con- 
verted themselves into military force. An unpar- 
alleled army was created, and was then handed 
over, along with the government of a great Euro- 
pean state, into the hands of a consummate military 
specialist and a most energetic character. He 
wielded this weapon with absolute control, and 
the result was a series of gigantic military enter- 
prises, conducted always ably, but for the most 
part also recklessly, and resulting in some pro- 
digious triumphs, and then in a series of still 
more prodigious disasters. 



254 Shaped by Circumstances. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW FAR NAPOLEON WAS SHAPED BY 

CIRCUMSTANCES. 

§ 1. Ilis Lau'lessiiess. 

In the quality, as well as in the quantity, of his 
performance we may trace the working of circum- 
stances. By circumstances he was shaped as well 
as favored. 

In general, it is easy to over-estimate the impor- 
tance of personality, the part which is played in 
human affairs by free-will. Those who have taken 
the most favorable, and those who have taken the 
most unfavorable view of Napoleon's character, 
seem alike to ascribe to that character a greater 
sliare in the events than it really had or could 
have. That he was scarcely governed at all by 
ordinary moral considerations, lies on the surface 
of his career, and those who try to defend his 
actions on accepted moral principles claim more 
for him tlian he ever claimed for himself, for 
he frequently repeated that morality was not 
intended for the class of men to which he be- 
longed. Was he then above morality or below . 



His Lawlessness, 255 



it ? That is, was he a great genius in morals 
as in military science, flinging aside conventions 
only in order to be more faithful to great principles, 
doing more good, and accomplishing more for man- 
kind by his audacious acts, apparently so lawless, 
than a timid morality could accomplish in ten times 
as many years ? Or was he, on the other hand, a 
kind of incarnation of evil, a Satan such as Milton 
describes, solitary in the universe ? Both views 
seem to attribute to him too much originality. 
He was a great soldier and a most powerful ruler, 
— that is, he had a great genius for action, but it 
is an error to attribute to him either the virtues or 
the vices of a philosopher. He neither had nor 
valued original ideas, but was a virtuoso in the art 
of availing himself of the new ideas which he 
found current. Especially when we consider his 
crimes and lawless acts, it becomes gradually clear 
that in his public morality Napoleon represents a 
peculiar demoralization, which had been gaining 
ground in Europe through the whole of the eigh- 
teenth century. 

The partition of Poland is cited as one of the 
greatest of international crimes, and it may fairly 
be said that ISTapoleon's whole career consists of a 
series of such crimes. From the partition of Venice 
and the invasion of Turkey at the beginning of it. 



256 Shaped by Circumstances. 

to the seizure of Spain, the spoliation of Prussia, 
and the invasion of Prussia at a later time, we trace 
throughout the same lawless determination to make 
the utmost use of a military force such as had never 
been seen before and was not likely soon to appear 
again. Unrestrained spoliation is the rule, and it 
is cloaked with the most transparent pretexts. 
But the very name of the partition of Poland 
ought to warn us against regarding Napoleon as an 
inventor or originator of international lawlessness. 
The example had been given when he was a child. 
Nor was that example by any means isolated, nor 
was he the first to follow it. This is sufficiently 
shown by the fact that the second and third par- 
titions of Poland, as well as the first, took place 
before the appearance of Napoleon, or by the fact 
that there was as much lawless violence in the 
revolutionary war between 1792 and 1796 as in the 
years that followed Napoleon's first campaign. 

Personality exerts a fascinating influence upon 
us. We perceive far more distinctly, as it were, 
the deeds we can attribute to a single notable per- 
son, than similar deeds of which the responsibility 
is divdded among many persons, of whom some may 
be obscure and some quite unknown. The enor- 
mous character of Napoleon's deeds would not 
strike us so much if the same deeds had been done 



Character of the Eighteenth Century. 257 

by a succession of ordinary French ministries dur- 
ing the same space of time. The best proof of this 
is that we so seldom remark how the same lawless 
principles bad been gathering head for a very long 
time in Europe, how many similar acts had been 
done before in the eighteenth century, how slight 
is the difference in moral principle, however great 
the difference in power and opportunity, between 
Napoleon and other rulers of that age. When we 
attend to this general character of the age, we come 
to see that the Napoleonic wars are only the fatal 
catastrophe towards which Europe had long been 
madly hurrying, the last paroxysm of the possessed 
before the evil spirit, which was the spirit of inter- 
national cynicism, went out of him. We talk of 
the partition of Poland, but that deed was really 
not so exceptional, nor should we speak of it as the 
cause of the demoralization of Europe, but rather as 
one among several proofs that Europe was already 
demoralized. 

Professor Stubbs has remarked that in the 
Middle Ages wars were waged for rights, but 
in modern times for interests. Till near the 
end of the seventeenth century, or as long as 
religion continued to be a leading international 
influence, it may be said that tliough there was 
much disorder and crime, sheer naked cynicism 
17 



258 Shaped by Circumstances. 

did not yet prevail in the intercourse of nations. 
But from the war of the Spanish Succession 
throughout the eighteenth century it may be 
said that, though there was some improvement 
in the manner in which war was conducted, it 
was undertalcen on more unblushingly immoral 
grounds than either before or since. The old 
European system founded on the unity of religion 
had passed away, and the later system, founded 
on the struggle of two rival religions, had almost 
passed away too. On the other hand, the modern 
system, founded on nationality, only began to show 
itself at the French Revolution. Hence, whereas 
our nineteentli century wars are inspired by na- 
tional patriotism, and the wars of the seventeenth 
century, even those of Louis XIV., have at least 
some, if only superficial, varnish of religion, those 
of the intermediate period — I speak of the Conti- 
nental wars — are scarcely colored by any kind of 
moral pretext. It is the iron age of international 
relations, the age in which wars are waged simply 
to round off a territory, to give compactness to a 
state. The ominous word Partition, pronounced 
a little earlier in reference to the Spanish Empire, 
when it was hoped to accomplish by treaty be- 
tween William III. and Louis XIV. the settle- 
ment which afterwards cost Europe a war, seems 



Affiliation of Napoleonism. 259 

to govern the whole century. It would appear 
that the precedent set in tlie case of the Spanish 
Empire demoralized all the politicians of Europe. 
They saw on the one hand the Bourbon family 
gain a kingdom in spite of a solemn renunciation ; 
on the other hand, a rearrangement of the map of 
Europe accomplished by force of arms. Hencefor- 
ward every great royal demise became the signal 
for a war on the model of that of the Spanish 
Succession. Had Louis XV. died in childhood, as 
was expected, there would certainly have been in 
the twenties a war of the French Succession ; there 
was a war of the Polish Succession in the thirties, 
and a war of the Austrian Succession in the forties, 
which last led to a second terrible struggle in 
the fifties ; tlie seventies witnessed a partition of 
Poland, and a war of the Bavarian Succession ; 
a partition of Turkey was attempted in the 
eighties. In the course of these wars kings and 
ministers accustomed themselves to contemplate 
rearrangements as large as those made at Utrecht, 
and to break eno-agements as sacred as that which 
had been broken by Louis XIV. This was seen 
in the eager haste with which so many sovereigns 
set aside the treaties in which they had pledged 
themselves to the Pragmatic Sanction. Tlie spec- 
tacle then presented by Europe ought to show us 



260 Shaped by Circumstances. 

that no partition of Poland, occurring thirty years 
later, was needed to demoralize statesmen. 

It is easy to show that the French Revolution 
and Napoleon proceeded upon lines laid down in 
the former age. Their partitions aud annexations 
were scarcely ever of their own imagining ; for the 
most part they did but take up schemes which had 
long been discussed, and had been attempted by 
other Governments. If they annexed Belgium, 
and gave Austria an indemnity in Italy, what was 
this but a modilication of the grand scheme of 
Joseph II., which had so long occupied Europe, 
the scheme of exchanging Belgium against Ba- 
varia ? It is to be observed that the same Joseph 
II. had also contemplated the acquisition of 
Venice. The partition of Poland is of course fre- 
quently referred to by the French diplomatists of 
the time as justifying, and even necessitating, a 
proportional aggrandizement of France ; and in 
lilce manner the Egyptian expedition was certainly 
undertaken by the French Government in emu- 
lation of the acts by which liussia and Eng- 
land had aggrandized themselves in the Oriental 
World. 

The peculiar nature of this demoralization is 
best seen in the career of the Emperor Joseph II. 
It was Frederick who avowed it with the most 



Imitation of Frederick. 261 

cynical frankness, but for this very reason Fred- 
erick strikes us rather as personally an unprincipled 
mau than as rellecting a special obliquity of the 
age. But of all sovereigns of modern Austria, 
Joseph appears as the most devoted to the public 
good, the most energetic reformer, the most in- 
defatigable enemy of abuses ; and yet this Em- 
peror's foreign policy turns almost exclusively on 
partitions and lawless annexations, so that, had ho 
been as successful as Napoleon, he would have 
been chargeable with almost as many international 
crimes. In general it may be remarked that 
in this period the sovereigns who are most 
enlightened and energetic, and open their minds 
most freely to the culture of the age, those 
to whom Continental Liberalism now looks back 
as to its founders, are specially lawless in acts 
of partition. The tliree great Liberal politicians 
of their time, Frederick, Joseph, and Cath- 
erine, combined to execute the partition of Po- 
land. It is therefore the less surprising that 
when all the enlightenment of the age came to 
a head in the French Kevolution, the principle 
of partition should have smuggled itself in with 
the principles of 1789, and that Bonaparte later, 
piquing himself upon being the successor of 
Frederick the Great in Europe, should have 



262 Shaped by Circumstances. 

emulated not only Frederick's code, not only his 
vigorous domestic administration, but also the 
seizure of Silesia and the partition of Poland. 

In international lawlessness, then, Bonaparte is 
not to be regarded as original. He is not pre- 
cisely on this point to be considered more un- 
principled than the other leading politicians. 
He can be charged only with going beyond 
them all in the ruthless energy with which he 
put the fashionable principle in practice, with 
committing crimes of the same kind, but in far 
greater number. 

In sliort, it was inevitable, if the maxims 
preached in the earlier half of the century by 
Belleisle and Frederick, and enthusiastically 
adopted thirty years later by Joseph and Cathe- 
rine, should come to be generally adopted, as 
at the time of the French Eevolution they ac- 
tually were, and if in the course of time some 
one European state should acquire a great 
military superiority to the others, that the con- 
sequence should be a sort of unlimited applica- 
tion of the principle of partition. This took 
place, and the result was the universal empire 
of Napoleon. 

While his lawlessness in foreign policy is to 
be explained in this way, the violent acts he 



Fashion of Primitive Cliaracters. 263 

occasionally committed at home, the nmrder 
of D'Enghien and Palm, and some other deeds 
of violence, appear in like manner less original 
and nnusual when they are taken in their place 
in French history. For if international politics 
had been demoralized gradually during the eigh- 
teenth century, the domestic politics of France 
had fallen into still wilder disorder through the 
Eeign of Terror and the whole stormy course of 
the first republic. Deeds which, done in the 
name of a civilized government, shocked all Eu- 
rope, were after all not so abnormal in the country 
which had so lately witnessed the storming of the 
Tuileries, the September massacres, the dictator- 
ship and fall of Robespierre, and still more 
recently the cruel violence of Fructidor. 

§ 2. His Impressihilitij. 

Thus his lawlessness and violence are to be 
regarded less as inherent personal vices than as 
characteristics of the revolutionary age, which 
were borrowed by him. It is true that there 
was a certain original correspondence between 
his Corsican nature and the revolutionary way 
of thinking. Eousseau had introduced the fash- 
ion of primitive antique characters, and had ac- 
tually pointed to Corsica as the home of such 



264 Shaped by Circumstances. 

characters. There is evidence that in the early 
part of his career Bonaparte impressed the Pari- 
sian mind as realizing more genuinely than others 
the conception of Eousseau. His fierce energy and 
decision, his grave and stern demeanor, suited the 
age, as they would have seemed hopelessly incon- 
gruous in the time of Fleury or Bernis. But he 
owed far more to the suppleness, the ready knack 
of imitation and assimilation, which was concealed 
under that demeanor. He had a marvellous trick 
of adopting, parading, and profiting by, the ideas 
which prevailed around him. Hence he was a 
cynic in foreign policy, and at home a Terrorist 
under Robespierre, an Anti- Jacobin at Brumaire, 
and soon afterwards actually a Catholic. But it 
was in his Eastern campaign that he displayed 
most strikingly this turn for masquerading in 
strange intellectual costumes. In his fancy that 
the Deism of the French Revolution could be 
made to pass in the East for Mohammedanism 
he pushed it to an extreme, but in the reign of 
terror which he established in Egypt, and in the 
massacre at Jaffa, we recognize the same man, 
who could be a Frederick in Europe and a Jac- 
obin or an Anti-Jacobin, as occasion might serve, 
at Paris. He has considered the manners of 
the East, assimilated them, and perceived that 



Relation to Parties. 265 

iu Oriental war it is customary to massacre 
prisoners ! 

That he was in an eminent degree the child of 
circumstances, that while he appeared to control 
his age, he was in reality controlled and moulded 
by it, he acknowledged himself when he said of 
some one who had written upon his career, 'He 
speaks of me as if I were a person! I am not a 
person, I am a tiling.' 

It is involved in this that he can have been 
no more a prodigy of goodness than a prodigy of 
evil. The fancy that in his perpetual wars and 
rearrangements of the map of Europe he had in 
view some grand regeneration of humanity, perhaps 
some federation of Europe which should finally 
close the age of wars, has seldom been formally 
stated, but it has haunted many writers as at least 
partially or possilJy true. What really actuated 
him will be discussed below, but he has no ideas 
peculiar to himself, only a talent for using and 
converting into force the ideas of his time. 

§ 3. Ills Relation to Parties. 

In this respect then he resembles a great party 
leader. But to what party did Napoleon belong ? 
Was he a Liberal ? Was he first a Liberal, and 



266 Shaped hy Circumstances. 

then a renegade ? Or was lie a Liberal who saw 
the necessity in an exceptional crisis of arming 
the Liberal cause with irresistible power, and so 
created a dictatorship in his own favor ? Or \vas 
he no Liberal at all, but a reactionary, or even a 
tyrant and a mere selfish adventurer? I have 
myself laid little stress upon his hostility to lib- 
erty, nor have I been able to discover that, after 
having be2;un as an enthusiastic and glorious 
champion of freedom, he was gradually corrupted 
by power so as to become a tyrant. His rule was 
from the beginning despotic, and just as much so 
when he was called First Consul as when he was 
called Emperor. If he varied at all, it was only 
in dropping a few republican phrases, which had 
never been intended but as a blind for public 
opinion. But in despotism, too, he was not 
original. He invented nothing, but was the 
creature of circumstances. For before his ad- 
vent, France had known since 1702 no other 
form of government but an extreme despotism. 
The Jacobinical party, which had been supreme 
in the main during the whole period, advocated 
a far stronger and severer form of <]jovernment 
than had been known before even in the des- 
potic states of Europe. It was this iron system 
that Bonaparte inherited ; he made it more system- 



In what Sense Liberal. 267 

atic, less violent, and much more enduraLle to 
the majority of the people. Assuredly he did not 
dream of abolishing it, and introducing in its place 
a system of liberty. But he destroyed no liberty, 
for there was none to destroy; and, indeed, if it 
may be asserted of certain nations in certain cir- 
cumstances that they are unfit for liberty, perhaps 
this may be asserted of the French in 1800, de- 
moralized as they were by eight years of the most 
furious infernal discord. It has often been pointed 
out that the Eevolution did not achieve, nor in- 
deed seriously aim at, political liberty. As to the 
social liberties, the civil equality, which had been 
the fruit of the first Ee volution (that of 1789), this 
w^as maintained on the whole by Napoleon. His 
system seemed on the whole a return to the first 
Eevolution, and an abandonment of the second or 
Jacobinical Revolution (that of 1792). As com- 
pared with the old monarchies of Europe, Napo- 
leonic France still seemed Liberal, and Napoleon 
himself ranked in Europe as a great Liberal ruler, 
as a successor of the Josephs and Catherines. 

To some extent no doubt he abandoned even 
the principles of the first Eevolution. He aban- 
doned the civil constitution of the clergy, and re- 
stored by the Concordat the ancient connection of 
the Church in its ancient Papal form with the 



268 Shaped by Circumstances. 

State. It is to be remembered, however, that the 
Church so restored was a disendowed and humbled 
Church, from which the State might be thought 
to have little to fear. Again, at a later time he 
violated the principles of the Eevolution by creat- 
ing a nobility. But this was at a time when the 
conquest of Germany had modified the French 
State in its very foundations, and when the French 
Eevolution itself seemed to have been superseded 
by a new or European revolution. 

The second or Jacobinical Eevolution he did in- 
deed renounce wholly. But he did so at once and 
avowedly at the moment of assuming power, and 
in doing so he recanted little. Before that time 
he had not been properly a politician ; that is, he 
had had no politics but foreign politics. It would 
be unreasonable to call him a renegade for now 
abandoning Jacobinism, on the ground that he had 
been a Jacobin at Venddmiaire, and had often 
talked Jacobinism since; in those days he had 
talked without responsibility, not as a politician 
but as a soldier. 

§ 4. His Significance in French History. 

Since, then, circumstances had so great a share 
in moulding Napoleon, how came they in this in- 
stance to mould a fi<Ture so colossal ? In other 



Regeneration of France. 269 

words, what does he represent ? Or is it possible 
that such a mighty display of power can be as- 
cribed to no single and simple cause, but only to 
a multitude of secondary causes accidentally com- 
bined ? In some sense surely he represents the 
spirit of the Eevolutiou ; and it is difficult not to 
think — however plainly the facts may seem to 
refute it — that that spirit was in some sense a 
spirit of liberty. Assuredly a new feeling of ardor, 
a new sense of health and power, had taken pos- 
session of the nation, and found expression, first, 
in the enthusiasm of the soldiers who conquered 
Belgium and the left bank of the Ehine before 
Napoleon's name was heard ; and later, in the ab- 
sorbing enthusiasm with which the hosts of France 
regarded 1dm. But great confusion is produced 
by using the word 'liberty' to express any kind 
of enthusiasm which may inspire a community, 
even when that community remains under the 
yoke of an iron government. Some more precise 
and appropriate term is needed. It was not the 
personal idea of liberty, but rather a sense of the 
greatness of France that inspired those armies. 
The principles of '89 had, as it were, made all 
Frenchmen feel themselves citizens — that is, not 
so much free, as having an interest in the State. 
It is not in liberty that the subjects of the Conven- 



270 Shaped by Circumsfances. 

tion or of Napoleon differ from the subjects of 
Louis XIV., but in the feeling that the Govern- 
ment, however absolute, was their Government. 
So distinct is this from liberty, tliat in the period 
when the feeling was fresli it gave a new energy 
to despotism. For the people took a pride in the 
strength and severity of the Government which 
was their own. 

Not less great in the history of a people is the 
moment when it acquires this sense of membership 
in the State than tlie moment when it asserts its 
liberty ; not less great, and wholly distinct. Then 
it ceases to regard Government with sullen dread 
as an enemy, or with resignation as an incompre- 
hensible superior power, and begins to conceive it 
as a representative of itself, as the champion of 
its interests. In no civilized country had the 
superstitious view prevailed more absolutely than 
in the France of Louis XIV. ; all the more inspir- 
ing was the cliange when now the rational view 
dawned upon the French mind, and the State ap- 
peared before their minds as a living organism. 
( We may, perhaps, say that the effect of the Eevolu- 
tion was to make France not free, but organic. Par- 
allel cases have occurred in our own age. Italy 
and Germany in like manner became organic by 
the abolition of petty, artificial, or foreign Govern- 



France becomes Organic. 271 

meuts, and by the establishment of a harmony 
between the State and the nation. In both cases 
the movement appeared to be at the moment 
rather unfavorable than favorable to the progress 
of liberty. In both cases the strongest form of 
government attainable was adopted. 

Now it is instructive to observe that in both 
these cases, also, the earliest instinct of the State 
thus endowed with organic life was to extend its 
territory and make war upon its neighbors. The 
first step towards German unity was marked by 
an unsuccessful war for Schleswig-Holstein, the 
second step by a successful one, and the consum- 
mation of German unity was, as it were, attested 
by the conquest of Alsace and Lorraine. The 
kingdom of Italy could not be content without 
Rome and Venice, and still raises a wild cry of 
' Italia Irredenta.' 

In France the same instinct w^as at work when for- 
eign war arose by a kind of necessity out of the Rev- 
olution. The speeches of Brissot de Warville, who 
inspired Dumouriez and prophesied of Napoleon, 
wdtness to the connection between the awakening 
sense of organic national life and the military am- 
bition of revolutionary France. ' We are a hun- 
dred times as strong as we were,' he exclaims; 
' now is the time to urge our ancient territorial 



272 Shaped by Circumstances. 

claims.' Much lias been said of the ambitious, 
unscrupulous character of the French nation ; but 
in truth a false history had suggested to them un- 
bounded pretensions, which no spirited nation, 
convinced of their justice, could renounce. They 
believed that they had a right to the frontiers of 
ancient Gaul, to the kingdom of Austrasia, which 
had been ruled by Charles the Great, and what 
not. Such illusions were in that age unavoidable, 
and they formed the basis of the foreign policy of 
the Eevolution. Hence it is that as the German 
Revolution of our own age led directly to wars 
witli Denmark, Austria, and France, so the French 
Itevolution inevitably kindled war on the Rhine 
and in Belgium. But it is the notable peculiarity 
of the French Revolution that it was lost in the 
foreign wars which grew out of it. It alone there- 
fore has its Napoleon. 

This result was brought about in the following 
way : — 

1. At the opening of the war France was in- 
vaded, threatened with dismemberment, and with 
a counter-revolution to be accomplished by force. 
This would at any time have called out a great 
movement of patriotism ; at that moment of the 
new birth of the nation it kindled a patriotic ardor 
such as had never been witnessed before in one of 



General Agitation in Europe. 273 

the large states of modern Europe. An immense 
national army sprang into existence, to which no 
army of earlier times was at all comparable. In- 
sensibly from an army of patriotic defence this be- 
came an army of conquest, and a professional army 
from an army of citizens ; but the old heroic spirit 
long survived the causes that had produced it, and 
the soldiers of Napoleon scarcely perceived till 1808 
or 1809 (when Lannes in his dying moments re- 
proached Napoleon with his ambition) that they 
had ceased to be patriots, and had become the tools 
of a conqueror. 

2. The beginninfj of oroanic life in France was 

o o o 

accompanied by the downfall of the ancient Gov- 
ernment. In Italy and Germany, on the other 
hand, we have seen the King direct the movement 
and increase his power by means of it ; and indeed 
had Louis XVI. been an energetic ruler, he might 
have acquired for himself much of the glory and 
power of Napoleon. But when the throne fell at 
the moment of the commencement of the war, the 
Revolution was drawn into another course, and 
this circumstance gave a new impulse to the war- 
like tendency. We have seen Germany put re- 
straint upon herself, and deliberately pause in her 
career of victory. She has been able to do so be- 
cause the military party has not been suffered to 

18 



274 Shaped by Circumstances. 

become supreme. A contrary result was witnessed 
in France, because there, the Government liaving 
fallen, the military party itself was called upon to 
make a Government. Imperialism was established, 
and this is the form of government which, by the 
law of its nature, is most disposed to war, and con- 
ducts war most efficiently. We remember the 
brilliant foreign policy of Cromwell ; the leader of 
French imperialism gave France a foreign policy 
as much more brilliant than Cromwell's as his army 
was greater and his authority more unquestioned. 

3. The warlike policy gathered strength from 
success. It was itself in harmony with the tradi- 
tion that had come down from Louis XIV. and 
Eichelieu. It consoled the nation for the military 
humiliations of the last thirty years of Bourbon 
rule. And now Europe saw that the old barriers 
which had been set up at Utrecht against French 
aggression would not withstand for a moment the 
attack of the new national army. Now came to 
light the prodigious military advantage of an or- 
ganic nation-state, with its inexhaustible supply of 
patriotic warriors, over inorganic artificial states 
such as those of Germany and Italy. Even in 
1798, Napoleon himself being inactive or absent, 
France had a triumphant feeling of superiority to 
all Europe. Government after Government, Svvitz- 



The Impulse of Expansion. 275 

erland, the Papal State, Naples, went down before 
her reckless attacks, made almost in wantonness. 
And what gratified her ambitious instincts seemed 
justifiable to almost all French parties alike on 
one ground or other. To revolutionists conquest 
appeared as the diffusion of truth and liberty ; to 
old-fashioned politicians it was a revival of the 
policy of Louis XIV., and an abandonment of the 
pernicious Austrian alliance ; while theorists, if 
they followed an historical metliod, applauded the 
restoration of the empire of Charlemagne or of the 
ancient limits of Gaul ; and if they reasoned a jjri- 
ori, and worshipped nature after the example of 
Kousseau, argued that a state founded on true nat- 
ural principles should have natural frontiers. 

This mighty spontaneous impulse of expansion, 
arising out of a fresh feeling of organic life in the 
French state, may on various grounds be blamed 
and criticised, but we can scarcely deny that it 
was great and poetical ; we cannot but admire the 
generous ardor, the high energy and devotion to 
which it gave occasion ; we cannot but admit that 
the series of wars which grew out of it is more 
agreeable to contemplate than the cynical struggles 
of princes for territory, which fill the annals of the 
former period. If, then, we find that jSTapoleon 
himself, after all criticism, remains a grand and 



276 Shaped by Circumstances, 

poetical figure, more interesting, more inspiring to 
the imagination, than any mere successful general, 
this is to be explained by the fact that he pre- 
sided with an unparalleled authority and an unap- 
proachable supremacy over this grand national 
movement. But in stating this the words ' lib- 
erty ' and ' liberalism ' ought not to be used at all ; 
they belong to a different province. Tlie greatness 
and grandeur of Napoleon is in foreign or interna- 
tional politics ; in domestic government he is 
simply an emperor — that is, one who practises 
the easy art of ruling a country through the army. 
In the history of Europe it will be said of Na- 
poleon as follows : that at tlie end of the eighteenth 
century a movement began by which tlie great 
Continental states, which till then had been inor- 
ganic, became conscious living organisms ; that 
this change took place in France first ; that it gave 
an extraordinary enlargement and sense of power to 
the French mind ; that, as it was at first peculiar 
to France, it gave her an immense military advan- 
tage over other European states ; that the perception 
of this tempted her into great w'arlike enterprises ; 
that hi these enterprises she found a leader of un- 
rivalled energy, who conducted them with aston- 
ishing success — Napoleon. But it will also be 
observed that this military advantage of France 



Napoleon in European History. 277 

was essentially temporary, and, as it were, acci- 
dental. Accordingly the inimcdiate results of 
Napoleon's life have now all disappeared again. 
All that he gained for France she soon lost, and 
she has lost more since by attempting to continue 
his policy. In this respect Napoleon differs from 
the great historical personages to whom we may be 
disposed to compare hira. The work of Alexander, 
Caesar, Charles, even of Peter and Frederick, en- 
dured for centuries, so that they are remembered 
as founders and creators ; but the work of Napo- 
leon perished within his own lifetime, and the 
attempt to make him an object of veneration and 
imitation has failed ignominiously. - '' ' ' ' ' 



^^^Cl^" 



273 Napoleon in Himself. 



CHAPTER III. 

WHAT NAPOLEON WAS IN HIMSELF. 

In inquiring how Napoleon was shaj)ed by 
circumstances we considered how far he might 
have been carried by merely executing with mili- 
tary ability the ideas of others, lievolutionary 
France wanted a leader to perform for her one 
of the greatest of military tasks. Napoleon rose 
to the height of power because he presented him- 
self as incomparably well qualified for the purpose. 

But wliat was he in himself ? That is, what 
were his own ideas and views ? 

Brumaire divides two very different periods in his 
life, which we might distinguish as the Bonaparte 
period and the Napoleon period. In the first he is 
a general, a servant of the state ; in the second he 
is sovereign and master of the state. Now it is 
necessarily in the latter period that his personality 
is most important, because as a sovereign he 
shaped his own policy, and planned his own 
achievements; whereas, so long as lie was a mere 
general, the principal responsibility lay with the 



Peaceful at First. 279 

Directory. Even then, no doubt, he acted with 
much more freedom than an ordinary general in 
ordinary times. But though he was no mere ex- 
ecutive agent in the partition of the Venetian Em- 
pire or in the Egyptian expedition, at least he did 
not make the war with Austria which caused the 
fall of Venice, nor the war with England which 
occasioned the Egyptian expedition. But after 
Brumaire, or at least after the treaties of Lund- 
ville and Amiens, whatever is done by France is 
the act of ISTapoleon, and of him alone. What 
France does he does, and what he does he also 
designs and conceives in his own mind. 

It follows that in this second period we have 
the best chance of discovering what he was in 
himself. 

§ 1. What ivas his Plan ? 

We can scarcely be content with the current 
opinion that, no sooner had he become master 
of France than, yielding to his military instincts, 
he plunged into wars of conquest. 

The simple fact is, that before Bonaparte 
tegan to reign there had been uninterrupted 
war with England since 1793, and war scarcely 
interrupted on the Continent since 1792, whereas 
after he began to reign, and had had time 



280 Napoleon in Himself, 

to make peace, the Continent was quiet for 
more than four years, and even the interminable 
rivahy of France and England ceased for a 
year. Even after the period of unljouuded 
conquest had begun in 1805, Napoleon was not 
quite so continually at war as tlie number of 
his battles and victories might lead us to sup- 
pose. He did not take the field eitlier in 1810 
or 1811, and during those years there was peace 
on the Continent except in the Peninsula. 

He was, in fact, not at all more aggressive 
than the Fructidorian republic, and for a long time 
he was decidedly less aggressive. During the 
Consulate he was renowned as the great peace- 
maker, as the friend of civilization, who alone 
had been found capable of healing the discord 
created by Jacobinism. 

Are we then to suppose simply that the love 
of war mastered him by degrees; that after 
gratifying for a year or two the anti-Jacobinical 
party which had called him to the throne, he 
gave way again to his martial instincts ; that after 
deliberately reckoning up his resources, and com- 
paring them with those of Europe, he became 
convinced that he could found a universal em- 
pire, and proceeded to execute this design by 
breaking the peace of Amiens in 1803 ? Certainly 



Does not divide his Enemies. 281 

liis behavior, bis diplomacy in 1803 and 1804 is 
that of a ruler intoxicated witb the sense of over- 
wbehning power, and eagerly desirous of war. 
But yet the theory that he formed at this time 
a conscious design of subjugating Europe seems 
far too simple to meet the facts. On that suppo- 
sition he would liardly have proceeded as he did. 

Any one who considers as a whole the his- 
tory of Napoleon's empire will be struck by a 
strange peculiarity, which, if we regarded the 
empire as founded by deliberate design, would 
convict Napoleon of an unaccountable and fatal 
blunder. It was evidently his interest, first, 
not to engage England and the Continental 
Powers at the same time; secondly, to engage 
the latter first, disarming England by concilia- 
tion, if not obtaining her help by bribes. When 
we consider with what triumphant success he 
humbled Germany and Eussia between 1805 
and 1807, and that he held the German Powers 
successfully in submission till 1812, and then rec- 
ollect that during all this time he was also waging 
war with England, the question suggests itself, 
What might he not have done if only he had re- 
mained at peace with England ? But for Eng- 
land, the Peninsula would not have pressed upon 
him with such a fatal weight. But for England, 



282 Napoleon in Himself. 

the avenging coalition formed in 1813 would 
have wanted both money and credit — would have 
wanted the cement that held it together. And 
a second question arises: For what purpose did 
he maintain these unceasing hostilities with 
England, hostilities ' nullos habitura triumphos ' ? 
In this war no victories were won or could be 
won; after 1805 it was but a monotonous 
blockade, maintained by England until the time 
came when England could take the offensive in 
the Peninsula, but no offensive was possible on 
the side of France. As soon as this question 
is asked, we remark another fact, which is of the 
first importance, viz. that the war with England 
began in 1803, though peace had been signed 
only the year before, and that it began with marks 
of great passion on the side of Bonaparte, whereas 
the war with the Continental Powers was still 
delayed for two years, and then had all the 
appearance of being forced on, not by Bonaparte, 
but by the other Powers. He did not turn his 
armies in the direction of Germany till he had 
become convinced of the impossibility of invad- 
ing England, and even then he only marched to 
repel a threatened invasion. 

It appears, then, that when he broke the peace 
of Amicus in 1803, he cannot at least have 



What ivas to have happened. 283 

had in view such a continental empire as he 
actually founded. He was thinking of some- 
thing not less great, but of something different, 
viz. the conquest or humiliation of the British 
Euiph'c. He did not suppose that he should 
fail in the invasion of England, and suddenly 
substitute for it an invasion of Germany; he 
anticipated success in his first plan. 

But he was alive from the outset to the extreme 
difllculty of the invasion. Accordingly he held 
in reserve, as we learn from a paper of Talley- 
rand, written just before the rupture of 1803, an 
alternative plan. 'England,' writes Talleyrand, 
'may compel France to conquer Europe.' It is 
characteristic of Napoleon throughout his career, 
that he keeps two plans in his head at once, and 
is at all times ready, if one fails, to fall back 
upon the other. ' I always,' he said, ' work out 
my problem in two ways.' 

It thus appears that tlie actual Napoleonic 
Empire, as it was founded between 1805 and 
1S07, was not a work deliberately designed by 
Napoleon. It was his j?J>is aller. His original 
plan luid been to engage England singly, and to 
crush her. The fall of the British Empire was 
to take place in the years 1803 and 1804 This 
was Napoleon's object. 



284 Napoleon in Himself, 

This plan failed. The English naval power 
proved too great, and Pitt, recalled to office, 
brought into existence a new Continental coali- 
tion. Thereupon Napoleon put into execution 
his alternative plan. Instead of conquering 
England directly, he would conquer the Conti- 
nent, and by that means England. As Talley- 
rand foresaw, the first part of this plan proved 
not difficult to execute. He did conquer the 
Continent, and he niai'shalled all its forces 
against England. The enterprise \vas colossal, 
and the duel between a confederated Europe 
and the World-Empire of England was an un- 
paralleled spectacle. But difficulties arose which 
had been but imperfectly foreseen. The con- 
federacy, being held together by force, was 
but half efficient ; when required to sacrifice 
the English trade, it became mutinous ; gradually 
the idea of conquering England by means of a 
European confederacy showed itself to be — like 
that earlier conception of the same mind, a 
revolution of the East effected through a fusion 
of Mohammedanism with French Deism — merely 
a dazzling; chimera. 

Thus viewed, Napoleon appears not as a 
mere ambitious sovereign, aiming at universal 
empire, but as having a more definite plan. 



His Enemy England. 285 

His end is the defeat of England ; what we call 
his universal empire is but a means to it. 

He sees but one enemy, England ; he en- 
gages England alone, but England calls the 
Continent to her aid. He masters the Conti- 
nent, and turns its resources against England. 
Then again, after Tilsit, he has but one enemy, 
England. But his monstrous design requires 
monstrous expedients. 

As he has to deal with a colonial and naval 
Power, he finds it necessary to control all the 
maritime states of Europe. Hence the seizure 
of Spain and Portugal, which brought him ships 
and colonies ; hence the annexation of Holland 
and the Hanseatic towns. So much violence 
provoked mutiny. The rising of Germany in 
1809 he was able to suppress ; but a little later 
the Czar placed himself at the head of the 
insurrection of Europe. The mutiny of the Czar 
could only be suppressed by a prodigious effort, 
and in this effort Napoleon failed. 

The point to be especially noted is that in 
this Ptussian war, as in all the violent annexa- 
tions which mark the years between the Russian 
war and the Treaty of Tilsit, the ground openly 
avowed is always the commercial system and 
the war with England. In truth, what we call 



286 Napoleon in Himself. 

the universal empire of Napoleon would be 
more appropriately called the universal coali- 
tion against England. The territory actually 
ruled by Napoleon and his family by no means 
amounted to a universal empire ; and Prussia, 
Austria, and Russia always remained outside 
it ; but the coalition against England included 
these Powers too, and even in some sense the 
United States. 

§ 2. Origin of the Plan. 

Regarded so, Napoleon's plan, though, as the 
event proved, unsound, appears intelligible — 
vitiated only, as a Napoleonic plan might 
naturally be, by extravagance and exaggeration. 
But this view suggests the further question. 
Why was Napoleon so bent upon compassing 
the fall of the British Empire ? The answer 
to this question is simple and natural, but shows 
perhaps tliat the workings of Napoleon's mind 
were more like those of an ordinary statesman 
than we are apt to think. 

After his return from Italy at the end of 
1797 he had been appointed, as we have seen, 
general of the ' army of England.' It was at 
first expected that in 1798 he would invade 



Tha Invasion of Egypt. 287 

England, but after due consideration he rejected 
this plan, and substituted for it an invasion of 
Egypt. This enterprise was directed ostensi- 
bly and in part, though only in part, really 
against England ; but England opposed it with 
a vigor which she has seldom displayed. The 
heroism of Nelson has always been duly recog- 
nized, but the immense greatness of his work 
seems to have been generally overlooked. At 
Aboukir he reconquered, as it were, the Medi- 
terranean for England. He dissolved, at a 
blow, all Napoleon's dreams of colonization 
and Oriental conquest. Soon afterwards he 
broke up the Armed ISTeutrality. Abercrombie 
crowned the work of Nelson in Egypt, and 
France had really no resource but to con- 
clude peace. As Eanke says, ' the man of the 
century had entirely failed. . . , Nothing re- 
mained for the First Consul but to recognize 
the maritime predominance of England.' At 
the very height of her greatness France had 
suffered a complete naval defeat at the hands of 
England. 

No further explanation surely is needed of the 
persistent hostility with which Napoleon hence- 
forth pursued England. The all-powerful master 
of France had not only been beaten, had not only 



288 Napoleon in Himself. 

been forced to yield Egyj)t, but soon after the 
treaty had been concluded, he saw also that Eng- 
land was likely to keep Malta. It was too much 
for him that his darling enterprise should end not 
even in simple nothing, but in delivering over to 
the enemy one of the strongest positions in the 
world. The rupture of the peace of Amiens was 
not so much as it seems a deliberate new begin- 
ning in Napoleon's life. It was but the recom- 
mencement of a war which had never really 
ceased, the retractation at the last moment of a 
step which Napoleon found after all intolerable. 
And, war being once recommenced, it was not 
likely that lie would put up with failure. Yet 
he found all his maritime plans in 1803 and 
1804 fail. In 1805 England met him with a 
European coalition, and he found himself drawn 
into the wild crusade above described, into the 
attempt to conquer England by conquering 
Europe. 

It appears, then, that Napoleon formed no de- 
liberate plan of universal empire, but in the first 
instance, merely took up the foreign policy of the 
Governments that had preceded him. He waged 
war with England merely because they had done 
so ever since 1793; he conducted the war with 
passionate and at last with insane persistency. 



Long Blvalnj between France and England. 289 



merely because he could not conquer this enemy 
as he had conquered otliers, because he had naval 
defeats to wipe out ; because it was intolerable to 
him, and not even safe, to put up with failure. 
But his military resources being as enormous as 
his naval resources were insufficient, and the 
new coalition affording him an opportunity of 
striking England by striking Austria and Eussia, 
the war with England converted itself insen- 
sibly into a war with the allies of England, and 
Kapoleon consoled himself for not being able to 
enter London by entering Vienna, Berlin, and 
Moscow. In all this there was nothing really 
new except the immense magnitude of the mili- 
tary operations. 

If we trace the foreign policy of France from 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, we find, 
first, a naval and colonial rivalry with England, 
which grows steadily more intense; secondly, a 
constant disposition to interfere and play the as- 
cendant power in Germany ; thirdly, a proneness 
to spoil either game by trying to play both at once. 
The war with England, begun by Napoleon in 
1803, was the fifth which France had undertaken 
in a period of sixty years. A generation earlier, 
Frederick the Great had spoken with impatience 
of the interminable quarrel of England and France, 
19 



290 Napoleon in Himself. 

which allowed no j^eace to Europe. But both in 
the War of the Austrian Succession and in the 
Seven Years' AVar, the rivalry had blended itself 
in a most confusing manner with other quarrels 
which France made for herself in Germany. This 
confusion had always proved most disastrous to 
France, and Chatham had been able, as he said, 
to conquer Canada in Germany. Nevertheless, 
the first step taken by the Convention was to 
repeat the old blunder by declaring war with 
England at the very moment when the French re- 
public was struggling for life against the Conti- 
nental Powers. If Napoleon had been able, as 
we are apt to think, to look down upon French 
politics from a superior height, if he had thought 
of inventing a new policy of his own, he would 
probably have begun by correcting this error, and 
would either have made peace with England, or, 
while he went to war with England, would have 
taken pains to propitiate the Continental Powers, 
But, like most statesmen, he was fettered by the 
past, and his career was spoiled in the end by the 
false policy which he inherited from the eighteenth 
century, and which he practised on an exagger- 
ated scale. He adopts the old methods of the 
eighteenth century, the armed neutrality and the 
occupation of Hanover; by placing a brother on 



Continued by Napoleon. 291 

the throne of Spain he revives the family compact. 
But his exceptional position enables him to go be- 
yond the eighteenth century, and to form against 
the so-called tyrant of the seas a stronger coalition 
than she had formed against the ascendency of 
Louis XIV. But this coalition is formed by force, 
and is a greater tyranny than that against which 
it is directed. Accordingly in the moment of need 
it passes over to the English side, and France is 
once more found to have overreached herself by 
undertaking a war with England and a war with 
the Continent at the same time. 

§ 3. Execution of the Plan. 
It appears, then, that the special and peculiar 
work of Napoleon is that colossal attempt to con- 
quer England by conquering Europe. Another 
ueneral, a Moreau, if he had been raised to su- 
preme power at Brumaire, would in like manner 
have found himself involved in war with England, 
would have met with the same difficulties, would 
have been equally reluctant to part with Malta, 
possibly would have felt himself impelled to break 
the peace of Amiens. But his ideas and his reso- 
lutions would have been less extreme ; he would 
have been less impatient of failure. When he be- 
came clearly aware of England's naval superiority, 



292 Napoleon in Himself. 

he would have made peace, and contented himself 
with undermining it gradually. For Napoleon 
this does not suffice ; he presses the war against 
England's allies, as though his object was the sub- 
jugation of the Continent. And yet his power 
did not increase much after 1803, when his as- 
cendency, alike in Italy, Spain, and Germany, 
was unbounded, and, wisely handled, might have 
been raised much higher. He did but substitute 
for this an invidious tyranny, which could be 
maintained only by an unintermitted effort and 
uninterrupted good fortune. A Moreau, such as 
we have described iiim, might even have been 
more powerful than Napoleon. Had he witnessed 
the new coalition, he would have felt it as a fail- 
ure of his policy that the wild times before Bru- 
maire sliould be reappearing. He too, probably, 
would have won considerable successes against the 
German Powers, but he would not have ventured 
upon the enormous hazards of the Austerlitz cam- 
paign. The idea of conquering England by con- 
quering Europe would have struck him as insane ; 
he would have said, untruly, that it was impos- 
sible of execution, and more reasonably, that it 
was a reckless adventure. Accordingly, France 
would have had no Austerlitz, no Jena, no Fried- 
land to boast of, and her ruler would not have dis- 



]Miat might have been. 293 

triluited crowns among bis brothers, or married 
an arcbducbess. But be migbt without great diffi- 
culty have continued for many years to be incom- 
parably the greatest sovereign in Europe, and 
without actually entering Vienna be migbt have 
entirely eclipsed Austria within the empire, and 
have gathered the smaller German states round 
bim in a Confederation of the Ehine. 

For the ruler personally such a career would 
have been brilliant enough. Had be been Mo- 
reau, be would perhaps have imitated Washington, 
and handed the Presidency over to another after a 
limited term. But if we suppose bim less disin- 
terested, he might, like Napoleon, have established 
an hereditary throne. Along with Jacobinism, 
France might have given up all that belonged to 
the Second Revolution, and have returned to the 
Liberal Monarchy of 1791, correcting only the 
great mistake of that constitution, which consisted 
in giving too little power to the executive. With 
such a monarchy Europe would have been dis- 
posed to live at peace. It would have suited 
France, in which monarcbism bad struck far 
deeper roots than could be eradicated in a few 
years of republican government. The Bourbons 
would Iiave been forgotten, the monarchical party 
of France would have transferred its allegiance, 



294 Napoleon in Himself. 

and, preserved from that double schism which 
afterwards ruined it, would perhaps have contin- 
ued to this day to form the vast majority of the 
nation. That nation would include at least Bel- 
gium, the left bank of the Ehine, Savoy, and 
Nice. 

We see, then, precisely how history was modi- 
fied by the exceptional character of Napoleon. 
He neither made peace with England, nor con- 
centrated his force upon her, carefully conciliating 
the Continental Powers, nor endeavored by dip- 
lomacy to form a European coalition against her, 
but plunged into the enterprise of forcing the 
Continent by arms into a confederacy against her. 
Yet he had himself, in 1800, shown the possibility 
of reviving by negotiation the Armed Neutrality ; 
nor would it have been difficult for lum, by mod- 
erate conduct in 1804 and 1805, to avert at least 
the third coalition. 

Evidently no political instrument can be less 
trustworthy than a confederacy held together by 
force. Tlie defection, first of S^oain, then of Prus- 
sia, then of Austria, could cause no surprise. And 
apparently it had been open to Napoleon in 1803 
to create a voluntary confederacy, which would 
have reduced England to a great extremity with- 
out endangering Napoleon's power. Yet, not only 



His Perversity. 295 

at the outset, but at every stage of his progress, he 
seems deliberately to prefer forced alliances, the 
result of a Avar, to any free combination of inter- 
ests. He had Prussia as an ally, but preferred to 
have her as a subject ; he was enthusiastically fol- 
lowed by Spain, but preferred to plunder and hu- 
miliate her; and he throws away his alliance with 
Russia, choosing deliberately to recover it at the 
head of 600,000 men. 

§ 4. Was he successful 7 

' Better in a battle than in a war ' is the phrase 
which Livy applies to Hannibal. But the popular 
view regards only battles, and seems unable to 
embrace a whole war, still less a comprehensive 
political scheme in which even a war may be but 
an episode. Hence the prevalent notion of Napo- 
leon as a kind of incarnation of success. In what- 
ever way we conceive success, Napoleon missed it, 
and if the Cffisars and Alexanders may be called 
the gods of history, Napoleon is the Titan. If we 
ascribe to him a purely personal ambition, he 
would have been successful if he had established 
his dynasty in France. To any one who saw him 
about 1802, it must have seemed that such an 
object was easily within his reach, if only he 
could stoop to pick up a crown. He did stoop, 



296 Napoleon in Himself. 

lie picked up the crown, but it dropped from his 
hauds again. Everything favored this ambition, 
the profoundly monarchical disposition of the 
country, the total failure of the Jacobins on the 
one side, and of the Bourbons on the other, his 
own military achievements, which, as early as 
1802, were unrivalled in modern history. The 
success with which, a generation later, his nephew 
traded on his mere name, is a measure of the mis- 
takes which caused his own ruin and that of his 
son. 

But let us suppose that he had liigher views, 
that he thought of the greatness and well-being of 
France. What was the effect upon France of the 
specially Napoleonic work, of the attempt to con- 
quer England by conquering Europe ? As in the 
popular view the triumphant success which this 
enterprise had in its earlier stages, seems to con- 
ceal the total failure which it met with in the end, 
so it makes us utterly blind to the irretrievable 
disaster which it brought upon France. Much, it 
is true, has been said of the loss of life incurred, 
and indeed the statistics of the campaigns of 1812, 
1813, 1814, 1815, are appalling. But the blood- 
shed fell upon several nations at once. What 
was peculiar to France was the loss of territory. 
And it was not merely the conquests made by 



Was he successful ? 297 



Napoleon that were lost. We may indeed hold 
that France suffered no real loss by the dissolu- 
tion of the Confederation of the Khine, or by the 
expulsion of her armies from Spain and Italy, that 
the fall of the Napoleonic Empire was to France 
but the removal of an unhealthy excrescence. But 
France lost more than this; she lost not merely 
the conquests of Napoleon, but those of the Revo- 
lution ; and these stand on quite another footing. 
She had held Belgium for twenty years, and the 
left bank of the Ehine for nearly as long a time. 
None of the acquisitions made by France under 
the Bourbons seemed more solid and secure than 
these. They had cost France dear, and the loss of 
them had been felt as an almost incurable wound 
to Germany. But the transference had been ef- 
fected, the struggle was over, the European system 
had adapted itself to the change. Other questions 
had arisen since. For a long time after the Treaty 
of Lun^ville it was not thought likely that the re- 
sult of the revolutionary war would be undone 
a^ain, or that France could be forced back within 
her ancient limits. 

To a Moreau or a Bernadotte it would probably 
have been an easy task to defend these acquisitions, 
for there was no discontent, no indignant outraged 
patriotism in the annexed territories, and how 



298 Napoleon in Himself. 

could Europe iu cold blood tear them by main 
force from such a Power as France ? Napoleon 
fouud the way to lose them. 

When we speak of Napoleon as a great con- 
queror, do we consider that he not only lost all 
his conquests, but left the territory of France ac- 
tually smaller tlian he found it when he became 
its ruler ? Belgium was no part of his conquests ; 
the left bank of the Ehine was an acquisition for 
which France thanked him only among others ; 
and this splendid tract of territory, which seemed 
as safely incorporated with France as Burgundy, 
was lost by Napoleon. 

The title ' Mehrer des Eeichs ' was deserved by 
several Bourbon princes. Henry II. won the three 
bishoprics, Alsace and Franche Comt^ are the tro- 
phies of Louis XIV., Lorraine and Corsica those of 
Louis XV. The struggle by which the First Ee- 
public had deserved the same title, and of which 
Belgium and the Left Bank were the trophies, was 
grander than any of these. What is the trophy 
of Napoleon ? Alone of all the modern rulers of 
France, he inflicted upon her a vast and irrepara- 
ble loss of territory. 

And yet not alone, for Alsace and Lorraine have 
gone since ; but they too have been lost in his 
name, and by recurring to his system. 



Influence, hoivfar Beneficial. 299 

§ 5. How far his Influence was Beneficial. 

The beneficial consequences which may be traced 
to Napoleon's career fall into two principal classes : 
(1) those caused not by him, but by resistance to 
him ; (2) those caused by him as the child of his 
age or the representative of the Revolution. 

(1.) It is said, Did not he carry a refreshing, re- 
generating influence wherever he appeared at the 
head of his armies ? Do not several European 
states date their modern period of progress and re- 
generation from a Napoleonic invasion ? This is 
true at least of Prussia, Eussia, and Spain ; but in 
what sense is it true ? In the same sense in which 
the greatness of ancient Greece is to be traced to 
the invasion of Xerxes. A pressing danger, the 
necessity of a great national rally, if it is followed 
by victory, is the most beneficial thing that can 
happen to a state. In Prussia the reform com- 
menced by Stein and Scharnhorst and the victories 
of the war of liberation which followed, in Russia 
and Spain the heroic resistance, had the effect of 
inspiring these nations as nothing had done before. 
But as the Greeks did not honor Xerxes for the 
great impulse they had received from the efforts 
which caused his defeat, so we ought to consider that 
it was not Napoleon, but resistance to Napoleon, 



300 Napoleon in Himself. 

which had such a bracing effect upon Europe. Did 
he intend to rouse national spirit ? What he ulti- 
mately intended it is indeed difficult to say. Possi- 
bly he calculated that the military tyranny which 
he exercised would not be long needed, and that it 
would cease as a matter of course, when the fall of 
England should be accomplished. But he certainly 
did not intend to rouse in Germany and Italy a po- 
litical consciousness leading to national unity and 
liberty ; still less did he intend to create that re- 
bellion in Spain which was fatal to his empire. 
He intended in these cases tlie opposite result, as 
we see by tlie great impulse which he gave to des- 
potism in the middle states of Germany, and by the 
pains he took to prevent his Russian expedition 
from leading to a restoration of Poland. Had he 
been successful — that is, had English influence 
been destroyed and English liberties been over- 
thrown, had Prussia been reduced to a mere elec- 
torate, and Piedmont to a French province, had the 
system of French imperialism been consolidated in 
Germany, Italy, and SjDain, — all the movements 
wliich have since made the life and animated the 
liistory of this century would have been precluded. 
Napoleon's own direct influence tended to ruin and 
to the stagnation of imperialism, and was only ben- 
eficial in backward countries such as Spain and 



Influence, how far Beneficial. 301 

Italy ; the regenerating influence of that age is the 
spirit of resistance to Napoleon. It was the great 
Anti-Napoleonic Revolution of Europe which, by- 
arming the peoples against tyranny, laid tlie foun- 
dation of European liberty. 

(2.) It is however true that he professed, in a 
vague manner, to be the champion of the liberal 
principles of the First Revolution, that is, of civil 
equality, religious toleration, and enlightened legis- 
lation. And it is possible to show that liberal 
reforms of this kind were introduced by his govern- 
ment in the Rhine provinces, in Westphalia, and 
in Italy, Naturally the expansion of France which 
followed the Revolution had many such beneficial 
consequences. But that expansion was not spe- 
cifically his work. It began before him ; it would 
have proceeded almost as far without him. Had 
Moreau reigned instead of Bonaparte, a similar 
influence would have flowed from liberal France 
upon the neighboring states ; it would have flowed 
more constantly and more uniformly, and it would 
have been followed by no similar reaction. Such 
liberal reforms are not specifically Napoleonic; 
they belong to the movement which bore him along, 
not to that which he himself originated. 

The same remark applies to his domestic reforms. 
"When he did only what IMoreau or Bernadotte 



302 Napoleon in Himself. 

would have done in his place, he often did what 
was good in itself, and he did it with remarkable 
energy. Thus it fell to him, wielding the first 
strong government that had been seen since the 
destruction of ancient France, to found a whole 
system of national institutions. Army, Church, Uni- 
versity, Bank, Local Government, Code. Modern 
France dates from the Consulate. And it may be 
possible to show that in some parts of the new 
system his own mind has left its stamp, and also 
that no ruler less energetic would have met the 
needs of the time so fully. Still in the main this 
work was done by committees of experts, and it 
was done at that time and at no other, not because 
Napoleon was specially enlightened, but because 
the country found itself at last at peace and almost 
without institutions. A Moreau would have done 
perhaps not so much, but he must have done a 
similar work; audit is easy to show tliat, being 
disinterested, he might have avoided great le^isla- 
tive errors, into which Napoleon was led by his 
rapacity of power. 

A similar remark may be applied to that great 
work of discipline, for which he often receives 
credit. It is said that his firm will, vigilant eye, 
and indefatigable energy presiding for years over 
every department of administration, gave an im- 



Judged by his Plan, 30J 



pulse to the public service and a discipline to offi- 
cials, which, passing afterwards into a tradition of 
conscientious work, has upheld the French state 
ever since. No doubt the contrast is great between 
the stern martial energy of the Napoleonic gener- 
ation and the effeminacy of the age of Pompadour. 
But here, again, the reform had been begun and 
was even far advanced when Napoleon appeared. 
It had been set ou foot by the Convention : Mar- 
ceau, Klt^ber, Hoche, in the army, Carnot in the 
Government, had set great examples, which an 
organized imperialism could not but emulate ; and 
what Bonaparte did in this respect Avould have 
been done by a Moreau, with less energy no doubt, 
but with a purer spirit. 

§ 6. Fapoleon judged hy his Plan. 

When we compare Napoleon's way of thinking 
with that of other rulers of the same class, even 
the most ambitious, we seem to see a difference. 
Louis XIV. and Frederick are thought ambitious, 
but they were scarcely ambitious in the same sense 
as Napoleon. Their course was unscrupulous and 
lawless, but in most cases they aimed at acquisi- 
tions which were really important, nay, often 
seemed indispensably necessary to the country. 



304 Napoleon in Himself. 

Thus by the partition of Poland Frederick at once 
rescued Prussia from a position of extreme difficulty, 
and acquired a province which seemed almost in- 
dispensable for the compactness of the kingdom. 
Louis XIV. also had for the most part a serious 
public object in view. To fortify France on the 
side where she was weakest, to complete the in- 
corporation of Alsace, acquired during his minor- 
ity, were objects so important tliat we may suppose 
many of his aggressions to have seemed to him 
justifiable on the ground of necessary self-defence. 
The feverish impatience with which the Emperor 
Joseph presses his wild schemes of annexation, is 
certainly to be explained by the extreme and dan- 
gerous want of compactness which he found in the 
Austrian territory. Napoleon, in adopting the un- 
scrupulous maxims of the eighteenth century school 
of rulers, applies them not only on a scale which 
would have appalled the most cynical of these, but 
also in cases which they did not contemplate. 
They pleaded self-defence and public necessity for 
their annexations. The plea was insufficient, but 
for the most part it was urged in sincerity. The 
same excuse of necessity and self-defence might be 
offered for the lawless conduct of the French Gov- 
ernment in the first years of the revolutionary war. 
The country was at one time in extreme danger. 



Judged by his Plan. 305 

and in addition the revolutionists sincerely believed 
that humanity itself was interested in their suc- 
cess. We may allow to Napoleon himself, so long 
as lie was Bonaparte, the benefit of this excuse. 

But it cannot be alleged for the wars of the 
properly Napoleonic period, that is, the wars after 
1803. France was now in no danger, and could 
urge no plea of necessity or self-defence. Her 
territory was greatly enlarged, and it was compact. 
When Napoleon now continued to practise the 
doctrine of Frederick and Joseph, he applied it to 
a state of things for which it had never been in- 
tended. His language was less cynical than Fred- 
erick's, because it was less frank ; but his conduct 
was far more immoral. Frederick's ambition is 
sincerely for the state ; it is for the state he sins ; 
and he seeks for the state real, unquestionable, 
solid advantages. But for a state lilce France, at 
the height of prosperity and glory, to adopt in an 
ordinary colonial and maritime war against Eng- 
land the desperate maxims by which Frederick and 
Joseph had sought to found solid and defensible 
states in the midst of the confusion of Germany — 
this was not to follow a bad precedent, but to per- 
vert a bad precedent into something infinitely worse. 
It was portentous and unique in the Napoleonic pol- 
icy, that, while it far surpassed that of Frederick in 
20 



306 Napoleon in Himself. 

cynicisrn and waste of human life, it had no defin- 
able object ; for who could say what shape Europe 
would take, or how it would be governed, when 
the maritime tyranny of England should once for 
all be overthrown ? 

Moreover, while he exaggerates the bad maxims 
of the past age, he shows no sympathy for the bet- 
ter maxims which his own age was substituting 
for them. The Machiavelism of the eighteenth 
century marked the dissolution of the old system. 
Wliat better system was to arise ? Frederick and 
Joseph could not be expected to know, but Napo- 
leon might have known. His own unrivalled 
glory came from the leadership of a living nation- 
ality ; he better tlian any man of his time might 
have foreseen that the nineteenth century would 
make Germany, Eussia, Italy, Spain, organic, as 
France had been made organic by her revolution. 
This development would create a new European 
system, in which no doubt wars would still have a 
place and armies become larger than ever, yet far 
nobler than the family system of the seventeenth 
century or tlie international anarcliy of the eigh- 
teenth. I have said that Napoleon did not origi- 
nate the lawlessness he practised, that he only 
reflected the morality of his age ; unfortunately 
lie reflected only one part of it, and presented a 



Judged by his Plan. 307 

rugged, dull surface to the better part. He had 
assimilated all that Frederick could teach, but the 
generous maxims of the first French He volution 
had made no impression on him. And yet he, a 
pupil of Paoli, a native of that Corsica which had 
been to Rousseau M'hat Greece was later to Byron 
— so that he had exclaimed, ' I have a kind of pre- 
sentiment that this little island will astonish Eu- 
rope ' — sliould have entered more than any of his 
contemporaries into all that is expressed by the 
word ' nationality.' It was indeed expected of him ; 
the primitive type of heroism, founded on devotion 
to the fatherland, seemed embodied in the Corsican 
soldier with his classical face. It is therefore a 
strikingly individual trait that he altogether dis- 
appoints these expectations. As in Corsica itself 
he turned against Paoli, so in Europe he will know 
nothing of the principle of nationality. He goes 
all lengths in warring against it, so that at last he 
becomes absolutely identified with the tyranny 
against which ' Plutarch's men ' fight. It is as if 
Tell should transform himself into Gessler, or Le- 
onidas into Xerxes. And no hereditary tyrant, 
warring on national independence in mere invin- 
cible ignorance of its nature, was ever more ruth- 
less and relentless than this tyrant, who had been 
bred in an atmosphere of national ideas. The op- 



308 Napoleon in Himself. 

pressor of Tyrol and Spain is actually the same 
man who only twenty years earlier had written 
the ' Letters on Corsica.' 

But, forsooth, everything must yield to the par- 
amount necessity of bringing to an end the mari- 
time tyranny of England. We can enter into the 
frenzy of the ruler who, while he meets with no re- 
sistance elsewhere, finds himself steadily thwarted 
in the one direction in which from the beffinning 
he had resolved to move. Germany, and Spain, 
and Itussia felt the impatient force, Avhich could 
not find an escape at Brest and Eochefort. And 
as he grew accustomed year after year to war on a 
large scale, it became perhaps more and more an 
object in itself. The character, which had always 
been remarked for its lonely pride and egoism, be- 
came, thus indulged on the one side and thwarted 
on the other, cynically unlike that of other men — 
inhuman. The former generation had trembled at 
the hard cynicism of Frederick, but human life 
was now wasted on a vastly greater scale, liberty 
more ruthlessly repressed, public law more con- 
temptuously outraged, by one who sprang from 
the people. Frederick had pursued intelligible ob- 
jects, but Napoleon's objects were scarcely defina- 
ble. At last, when he sacrificed half a million of 
men in Russia to his crotchet of a commercial sys- 



Judged by his Plan. 309 

tern, he seemed to pass out of the pale of civilized 
humanity, and to rank himself with Attila. The 
comparison was superficial ; but had Napoleon, or 
had Attila, the better right to complain of it ? The 
barbarian followed the maxims of his age and peo- 
ple, but we can only look with stupefaction on the 
Russian expedition. For we remember that this 
most monstrous of human sacrifices was performed 
by the person who twenty years earlier was pro- 
nounced ' a man of sensibility,' when he discussed 
in the style of Rousseau 'what sentiments it is 
important to inculcate upon human beings for 
their happiness.' 

Where it is possible, the best way to estimate 
the moral character of a man is to consider the 
general purpose and drift of his life. Particular 
acts usually admit of palliation or excuse ; in a 
time so revolutionary as that in which Napoleon 
lived, almost every act may be plausibly defended 
on the plea of an exceptional necessity. No one 
has ever accused Napoleon of purely wanton 
crimes, such crimes as springy from an unhealthy 
nature. His crimes are for the most part acts of 
lawless violence, done openly, avowed, and justi- 
fied by the reason of state. The language he uni- 
formly held shows that he had adopted early, 
and with great decision, the maxim so current in 



310 Napoleon in Himself. 

the revolutionary age, that as long as the public 
good is our object, almost every act is permissible; 
or, as Mirabeau was fond of repeating, 'La petite 
morale est ennemie de la grande.' We may say 
that he elects to be tried by the standard of Fred- 
erick the Great. He does not profess to observe 
the morality of ordinary men ; as Frederick 
frankly maintains that for the public good trea- 
ties may be broken, so Napoleon will break any en- 
gagement and violate any law for the public good. 

This principle is terrible ; nevertheless it is a 
principle. Those who sincerely adhere to it will 
subject themselves to a certain restraint, will rec- 
ognize certain acts to be criminal, and certain other 
acts to be obligatory. For Frederick himself, per- 
haps, the principle had really its positive as well 
as its negative side. The public good was to him 
perhaps no mere pretext, no mere synonyme for his 
own interest. In his career, as we see the nega- 
tive working of tlie principle in such particular 
acts as the invasion of Silesia and the partition of 
Poland, so we see the positive working of it in the 
general tendency of the whole. "We see that at 
the beginning of his reign the Prussian state la- 
bored under great disadvantages, which exposed 
it to great dangers. We see that it is to remove 
these disadvantages that Frederick devotes his life 



Judged by his Plan. 311 



and commits his crimes. Wheu he speaks of the 
public good he is serious, and we may, perhaps, 
acquit him on the whole of a purely selfish ambi- 
tion. Hence he is remembered with gratitude by 
the Germany of the present day. 

The attempt has been made here to apply the 
same method to Napoleon. It is the only method 
which is sufficiently compendious to be admissible 
in a work of this kind, and it is perhaps in itself 
the most satisfactory. All his lawless deeds were 
regarded by him as means to an end, justified by 
the goodness of the end. He was full of the idea 
that he had to deal with a revolutionary age, to 
which ordinary maxims are inapplicable. 'You 
understand nothing of revolutions,' was his con- 
temptuous comment, when some one related how 
he had yielded to a moral scruple at some crisis of 
French affairs. If this was his view, what can be 
gained by nicely sifting the evidence on which the 
special charges against him rest ? ' Such men as 
I,' he said, ' do not commit crimes ; ' that is, they 
do what is necessary, and what is necessary is 
right. 

But Napoleon, like Frederick, had so much free- 
dom and power that we are able to discover what 
general objects he has in view. We are able to 
apply to him the tests he himself accepts. 



312 Napoleon in Himself. 

From about the middle of the period of the Con- 
sulate he begins to be as free from all pledges 
and all responsibility as Frederick had been, and 
therefore from this date onward lie reveals his own 
personal aims, whereas earlier he had been but an 
instrument of the aims of the French Revolution. 

In the former period, therefore, we see the man 
such as circumstances made him. He is the incar- 
nation of the vitality of a great people, made or- 
ganic for the first time. They have the instinct of 
subordination, formed in the time of despotism, and 
along with it the new feeling of life. Of such a 
nation he becomes the heroic king, in order to vin- 
dicate it and subdue its enemies. This period 
comes to an end in the Consulate, when Bonaparte 
accomplishes the pacification of the world. 

In the latter period we see the man such as he is 
in himself. He now no longer executes a commis- 
sion derived from others, but forms his own plans. 
In the execution of them he is, like Frederick, un- 
scrupulous. Both at home and abroad he makes 
slight account of engagements ; like Frederick, too, 
he is hard and careless of human life. Moreover, 
as his power is far greater, his reckless violence 
oppresses mankind far more than Frederick's had 
done. The carnage and horror of the Seven Years' 
War are utterly eclipsed on the fields of Borodino 



Judged by his Plan. 313 

and Leipzig, and in the retreat from Moscow. 
And, still further, he is himself the prime mover 
in the incessant wars of this period; whereas 
Frederick, after the invasion of Silesia, had re- 
mained for the most part on the defensive. But, 
like Frederick, lie justifies his course by the plea 
of the public good. 

He pushes this wild morality to the utmost ex- 
treme. For it is scarcely possible to imagine any 
reform or improvement in human affairs so great 
as to compensate for all that Napoleon inflicted on 
mankind — for France decimated, for Eussia in- 
vaded, for Spain made for five years the scene of a 
barbarous civil war, for Germany trampled under 
foot, for England blockaded, for a whole generation 
sacrificed to war. Still, in estimating Napoleon's 
character, the essential question is. Had he really 
the public good in view ? Had he some object 
which, if it could be attained, might conceivably 
seem to him worth so many sacrifices, and which he 
might conceivably hope to attain by means of 
them ? If he had, we may regard his career as in 
a certain sense magnanimous, if also wayward, and 
even monstrous: we may regard him as a great 
spirit lalioring under a terrible but still sublime 
hallucination. 

Our conclusion is that he had neither any such 



314 Napoleon in Himself. 

grand conception, nor yet, on the other hand, the 
bare desire for personal glory. He pursued simply 
the ordinary objects of the French Foreign Office, 
and only failure and the impatience caused by fail- 
ure led him to strain in such an unheard-of manner 
the enormous resources of his empire. His aim 
was to fight out the great quarrel with England 
which had occupied France throughout the eigh- 
teenth century, to avenge and repair the losses 
France had suffered in Canada and India, and on 
all the seas. This was what he promised to 
France ; and being unable to accomplish his 
object by a direct attack, he forced all Europe 
into the war, ' conquering Europe inW order to 
conquer England,' and offering nothing to Eu- 
rope in return but the old points of the Armed 
Neutrality. 

Tliis is what he promised ; and what he prom- 
ised he failed to perform, causing France to lose 
in the attempt all the dear-bought conquests of the 
Eevolution. 

When we review tlie career of Frederick the 
Great, we cannot refrain, however severely we 
may judge his crimes, from reflecting that after 
all his monument is modern Germany. That solid 
structure remains to honor the workman who did 
so much to build it. It is, in the main, just such 



Judged by his Plan. 315 

a structure as Frederick would Lave desired to see, 
as he intended to found. 

For Napoleon, too, it may be said that modern 
France, in its internal constitution, is his monu- 
ment. Its institutions are in the main the work 
of his reign. But this is the monument of that 
earlier Napoleon who was the child of his age. 

The Napoleon wlio was himself, who executed 
his iron plans with almost unlimited power, has 
uo monument. All that he built, at such a cost of 
blood and tears, was swept away befor.e he himself 
ended his short life. 



t ^ • 

^ 7 



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LIFE AND TIMES OF STEIN; 

OR, 

Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age. 

By J. R. SEELEY, M.A., 
Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, Eng. 



Tiiis book is drawn almost entirely from German sources which 
neither English nor French writers have yet explored, and it describes 
events which form the beginning of the modern history of Prussia, 
and others which are very important in the history of Europe. 

The author has kept students of history constantly in view. It is 
a favorite opinion of his that recent history ought to be introduced 
into education, and this book is intended to be such as can be intro- 
duced into universities and the higher forms of schools. 

From the Hartford Courant. 
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Homo,' is a work of great importance to students of political history. The subject of 
it, we may remark by the way, is honored in Berlin by what is probably the finest 
statue made in modern times. And this consummate work of art is only a fit recog- 
nition of the pre-eminent service that Baron Von Stein rendered to Prussia. It 15 
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liim the successful career of Prince Bismarck, the architect of German unity, would 
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day we see more and more clearly the outlines of the great constitutional struggles, 
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Hardenberg, and the preparations for Prussian strength and Prussian ascendancy. 
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